2017 International Conference on AIDS & Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA)
ICASA 2017 will be held December 4 through 9, 2017 in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. This prestigious event is organized by the Society for AIDS in Africa, in collaboration with global and local partners. This year, nearly 10,000 delegates from 150 countries will attend to discuss the diverse nature of the African region’s HIV and STI epidemics, as well as the unique responses required to address them. ICASA attracts global leaders, policy makers, researchers, activists, and others to share the latest scientific advances in the field, to learn from one another’s expertise, and develop strategies to advance all facets of our collective efforts to treat and prevent HIV and STIs. Experts, including those from the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) will work together at this venue to provide various presentations on best practices in these technical areas and will map a way forward to ensure progress in HIV prevention, care and treatment programming.
EGPAF will participate in one satellite session, one workshop. We will present two oral abstract sessions, and display 11 poster presentations. All poster presentations will be displayed between 8:30 am and 6:30 pm on the days indicated below. Please see below details for more information on EGPAF-related events at this meeting.
To get exciting news and updates from EGPAF at the conference, be sure to stay tuned to EGPAF’s Twitter feed throughout the week and by using the hashtag #ICASA2017.
Satellites and Workshops
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional office for Africa in collaboration with the WHO headquarters and EGPAF, as well as other members of the AIDS free working group (UNICEF, PEPFAR, CIFF, ELMA) will hold a dedicated meeting to assess progress, address remaining gaps and share good practices to move forward with accelerated action for children and adolescents living with HIV. The meeting will be held at the margins of the ICASA Conference in Cote d’Ivoire and will include delegations from the 21 priorities countries of AIDS FREE. The overarching objective of the meeting is to build on previous regional workshop and ongoing enhanced TA to promote acceleration in the scale up timely diagnosis, treatment and care for children and adolescents in AIDS free focus countries.
This session will identify opportunities and challenges in scaling-up HIV prevention in African countries and provide an opportunity to identify concrete actions to accelerate HIV prevention. Discussion will focus on the key challenges, progress, and opportunities in HIV combination prevention strategies within the context of the Catalytic Framework to end AIDS, TB and Eliminate Malaria by 2030, Africa’s broader health and development agenda, Agenda 2063, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
For HIV-exposed infants, accurate, rapid diagnosis is critical to ensure appropriate care, including early antiretroviral treatment (ART) initiation for HIV-infected infants, in order to decrease morbidity and mortality. Effective point-of-care (POC) molecular technologies present an opportunity to improve patient outcomes by expanding access and decreasing turn-around time to clinically relevant test results. This session will focus on how access to new POC technologies is being scaled-up within the diagnostic networks of early-adopter countries, present results from the implementation of a variety of service delivery models, and introduce key considerations and tools to assist in POC implementation. In addition, the session will emphasize the importance of coordination among national ministries of health, donors, and implementing partners to ensure POC implementation is sustainable. The purpose of this session is to demonstrate how POC molecular testing for early infant diagnosis and HIV viral load testing is being integrated into national diagnostic networks and scaled-up for routine use in a variety of settings and through multiple service delivery models.
This session will present five abstracts exploring various factors that impact management of the HIV epidemic, including stock-outs, coverage of HIV/AIDS services, and equitable financing. EGPAF-Côte d’Ivorie Country Director Joseph Essombo will be co-chairing this session.
