30 years after first meeting, new guest seminar begins

Infectious disease doctor Pedro Cahn recalls being criticized by some colleagues “for having patients and community people talk about HIV at congresses,” a feature of the history of the Huésped Foundation’s scientific symposia . The twentieth edition begins this Wednesday, featuring news on long-term treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) biomedical topics30 years since we first met.

“International AIDS conferences have always been held in English, not everyone speaks English, and even those who are able to travel or watch the conference now actually miss a lot of details; so we organized this workshop As part of one of the Foundation’s missions to share knowledge with professionals and the communitysaid Kahn in his conversation with Tyram.

Huésped founder and scientific director Cahn recalls Early on, a fellow diabetologist approached him in the hospital and asked him if they had really grown patient and talked over the dinner table..

“When I told him yes, he replied that it was ‘very rare’ and I replied that at their congress it would be very useful to hear from someone who has to inject insulin twice a day to see how they feel , ” he recalled.

For experts, “Clinicians and researchers have much to learn from civil societysocial scientists, they also have something worthy of our study; this is a way of socializing knowledge”.

In 1993, when the first symposium was held, highly effective antiretroviral therapy was not yet available, so Drugs to relieve symptoms available to people living with HIVbut the disease is in an advanced stage. With the advent of these treatments (commonly known as cocktails) in 1996, the disease became chronic.

“At the World AIDS Conference in Vancouver, Canada, In 1996, we heard for the first time that viral loads could not only be temporarily lowered, but that this drop could last as long as the patient was on the drug.; It is very powerful. The same thing happened at the symposium when we made the announcement here that year, and the impact was huge,” Kahn said.

The scientific director of Huésped recalls that the pivotal moment of the 20 meetings was when Julio Montaner (Argentinian epidemiologist based in Canada) presented to the local community The concept of cure as prevention, known today as undetectable = untransmittable (I=I) This means that if a person is on treatment with an undetectable viral load, then they cannot transmit the virus.

He added: “The idea was a big hit, and it was also powerful when we first came up with the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEp) strategy of providing treatment to highly exposed people who didn’t have the virus.”

Huésped executive director Leandro Cahn pointed out that when the World AIDS Conference began to be held every two years, the same thing happened in Argentina.

“By the middle of 2010, new antiviral treatments for hepatitis C came out, and then in the years we didn’t have HIV/AIDS seminars, we held conferences related to the disease until finally, As the Foundation’s vision expanded to begin working on other issues related to sexual and reproductive health, we decided to return to the annual format’, said to Teram.

Currently, the seminar has two conference rooms for parallel sessions and plenary sessions, Health experts, social scientists and communities come together to discuss more than just HIV and hepatitis CBut for all sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis (a disease that has grown in recent years), the meeting discussed health, community prevention strategies and rights in addition to treatments and science news

“Doctors and researchers can learn a lot from civil society”

Peter Kahn

“We strive to There is a real dialogue between biomedical, social and political decision makers, with three legs. This is a very specific feature of the global AIDS movement in that, unlike other diseases, there is no patient table at scientific congresses, but there is always an interaction”, says Leandro Cahn.

The twentieth edition, which runs from Wednesday to Friday, includes medical topics including: New features are long-term treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEp) strategies; Also included are metabolic complications in virally infected patients and cases where treatment was initiated on the day of diagnosis.

on the other hand, Topics such as practical and legal barriers to health for sex workers will be discussed; topics such as universal health coverage (UHC) and community engagement and interdisciplinary contributions to joint prevention.

fountain: Teram.