Major HIV conference comes to Sydney
World leading HIV experts will soon be convening in Sydney to advance a new type of product that could change the face of HIV prevention: microbicides.
The 2012 International Microbicides Conference (M2012) – From Discovery to Delivery – will take place from April 15-18 at the Sydney Exhibition and Conference Centre at Darling Harbour.
Heralded as ‘the most important innovation in reproductive health since the Pill’, microbicides refer to a range of products applied vaginally or rectally to provide protection from HIV and possibly other sexually transmitted infections.
Related products, known as ‘PrEP’, are taken orally, with the same goal of HIV prevention.
Today’s HIV prevention options are considered not feasible for millions of people around the world, especially women. Many women do not have the social or economic power necessary to insist on condom use or fidelity or to abandon partnerships that put them at risk.
In the extreme HIV epidemics of southern Africa, a high proportion of women are at risk only through their husbands, with whom condom use is not an option. Microbicides are being looked at as a chance for women the chance to protect themselves. In low prevalence countries such as Australia, microbicides could offer a supplement to condoms.
Speakers at the conference will include Reproductive Health Research Unit executive director at the University of Witwatersrand, Professor Helen Rees; Professor of global health and medicine at the University of Washington, Dr. Connie Celum; and head of HIV prevention, national AIDS/STD control programme, Kenya, Dr. Peter Cherutich.
Full program available at: www.microbicides2012.org
