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| LAST UPDATE: Sunday, 28 June, 1998 14:00 GMT M E D I A R E L E A S E ...all the news, as it happens | ||
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| LAST UPDATE: Sunday, 28 June, 1998 14:00 GMT M E D I A R E L E A S E ...all the news, as it happens | ||
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| 12th WORLD AIDS CONFERENCE TO ADDRESS MEDICAL ADVANCES, SOCIAL AND
ECONOMIC COSTS, AND EXPANDING GLOBAL TOLL OF HIV/AIDS |
ENGLISH FRENCH
(GENEVA, SWITZERLAND) - Sunday, 28 June, 1998, 16:00– More than 12,000 researchers, physicians, policy makers, and advocates will gather in Geneva, Switzerland, June 28 – July 3 for the 12th World AIDS Conference, the world’s largest and most comprehensive conference on HIV/AIDS. Attendees will gather from virtually every nation in the world for the Geneva meeting, the first World AIDS Conference since the 1996 meeting in Vancouver, in which promising data on combination therapies were first presented. Now, two years later, the 12th World AIDS Conference will address many of the questions left unanswered in Vancouver, including questions regarding the long-term use of combination antiretroviral therapy, concerns about viral mutation, and questions about whether HIV can be eradicated from an infected person. During the Conference's five days of sessions and several additional days of satellite seminars and programmes, attendees will review the latest HIV-related basic and clinical science, along with global epidemiology and the social and behavioural science that is key to understanding the transmission and prevention of HIV. Issues of disparity between the northern and southern hemispheres in access to treatment, prevention information, and support, will also be a key focus of the Geneva meeting. The Conference theme, "Bridging the Gap", reflects the meeting's focus on the need for a global effort to address these disparities. "The essential message of the Geneva meeting is that, while much of the developed world is making progress in slowing HIV infection and treating those with HIV disease, enormous regions of the world, which are home to literally billions of people, are being allowed to slip further and further behind," said Conference Chair Dr. Bernard Hirschel, Head of HIV/AIDS at Geneva's Cantonal University Hospital. "Millions of people are becoming infected with HIV in the developing world every year - 10 million since we last met two years ago." "It does not have to be that way," Dr. Hirschel continued. "The developed world has access to information, expertise, medical technology, and financial resources that, if shared, can help avert the global catastrophe that will result from allowing HIV/AIDS to spread through much of our planet unchecked."
The 12th World AIDS Conference programme of 400 oral presentations and 5,000 posters was selected from a record 7,100 abstract submissions, scored through a blinded peer review process. "While basic and clinical science are central to the Geneva meeting," said Dr. Hirschel, "we have worked to build fully developed conference tracks on epidemiology, behavioural science, policy and ethical issues. The 12th World AIDS Conference will present the spectrum of AIDS-related problems, from molecular biology and drug development to human rights and psychosocial care. And every conference track will work to focus attention on the disparities between North and South in HIV transmission, prevention, and access to therapies." "There is a great deal of progress to report. Yet, in some ways, the enthusiasm that greeted medical progress in Vancouver will be tempered in Geneva by medical and social reality: HIV/AIDS is still one of the most devastating global pandemics of modern time," said Robin Gorna, Chair of the Community Planning Committee. "Transmission of the virus is rising in almost every part of the world, and human rights violations and lack of political leadership hamper effective prevention programmes. New treatments are still expensive and difficult to use, and they do not appear at this time to be a cure. And most of the world has no access to therapies to prevent the catastrophic suffering and loss of life caused by HIV/AIDS."
Conference Tracks and Pathways The 12th World AIDS Conference is organised along four tracks: Track A – Basic Science Track B – Clinical Science and Care Track C – Epidemiology, Prevention and Public Health Track D – Social and Behavioural Science In addition, four Pathways have been identified to indicate topical issues that cut across the different tracks. These pathways are: Gender (G), Human Rights (H), Policy (P), and Youth and Children (Y).
Plenaries and Other Non-Abstract Driven Sessions Non-abstract driven sessions include daily Plenary Sessions, inter-disciplinary and inter-sectorial Bridging Sessions, Skills Building Workshops, Orientation Sessions, Daily Summary Sessions, and a final Rapporteur Session. While the official Conference language is English, many of these sessions will also be simultaneously translated into French and Spanish. The Conference Opening Ceremony will take place in the Arena on Sunday, June 28 from 17.30 to 19.00.
A small number of important scientific presentations that were submitted after the abstract deadline will be presented in two Late Breaker Sessions. The first, focusing on mother-to-child transmission, will be presented on Monday, June 29 from 11.00 – 12.30. An additional late breaker session covering other areas of research will be held on the morning of Friday, July 3. Other late-breaking results will be presented in Poster sessions.
Posters In addition to oral presentations, over 5,000 peer-reviewed research abstracts in all four Conference tracks will be presented as posters. Posters will be changed daily, and will be displayed from 08.00 until 18.00, Monday, June 29 to Thursday, July 2 in Hall 1, 5 and 7. Discussants will be at their posters from 08.00-08.50, 12.00-13.00, and 17.00-18.00 to discuss their research and answer questions.
Exhibition Hall and Community Village The Conference Exhibition features almost 250 booths with world-wide representations. The exhibit hall includes approximately 150 non-governmental, non-profit organisations, along with a wide range of commercial organisations.
Cultural Programme A number of cultural activities, which include live performances, visual art exhibitions, dance, cinema, and many others, will be open to all conference participants and the general public in Geneva. The Conference Cultural Programme is designed to celebrate diverse cultural expressions in the face of HIV/AIDS, and to recognise the role that performance and visual arts play in education and in bridging the gap in AIDS awareness, prevention, and advocacy.
Symposia, Satellites, and Pre-Conference Sessions In addition to the official Conference programme, dozens of other sessions relating to HIV and AIDS will be held on and off-site prior to and during the 12th World AIDS Conference. Community Symposia programmes, to be held on several days of the Conference, will focus on the interactive exchange of information between participants from different parts of the world on a wide range of issues related to community action on HIV/AIDS. In addition, more than 40 commercial and non-commercial satellite meetings will be held during the 12th World AIDS Conference. These satellite meetings, sponsored by medical centres, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and pharmaceutical industry leaders, will be held in various halls in Palexpo, or in area hotels.
The Conference Media Centre, which is open to all accredited media attending the meeting, is located in Palexpo Hall 7. Computer workstations, printers, fax machines, telephones, modem connections, and interview rooms will be available. A host broadcaster service will provide a full range of broadcast facilities. Two official press conferences will be held on each full day of the meeting (Monday, June 29 – Thursday, July 2). Opening and closing press conferences will be held on Sunday, June 28 and Friday, July 3. In addition, a number of third-party press conferences, those sponsored by organisations other than the 12th World AIDS Conference, will be held in rooms Geneva 1 and 2 in the Swissair building, a five minute walk from the Media Centre.
Conference Scholarships A record scholarship fund of SFr. 2,000,000 (approximately $1.35 million U.S.), created through the generous support of a number of sponsors, allowed the Conference to award approximately 1,000 scholarships to people working in the HIV/AIDS field, particularly from resource-poor environments. The Conference organisers received 3,600 requests for scholarships, nearly double the number applying to the last conference.
About the Conference Organisers The 12th World AIDS Conference has had an unprecedented level of involvement from communities affected by HIV and AIDS. The conference is chaired by Dr. Bernard Hirschel, with the Community Planning Committee chaired by Ms. Robin Gorna. The Conference is co-organised by the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+), the Government of the République et Canton de Genève, the International AIDS Society (IAS), the International Council of AIDS Service Organisations (ICASO), the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW), and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
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