Fundación Huésped hosts new seminar 30 years after first lecture

Photo: Teram.

Pedro Cahn, an infectious disease physician, recalls being criticized by some colleagues for “because he brought patients and the community into meetings where HIV was discussed,” a fusion that is the history of the Huésped Foundation’s scientific symposium characteristics, the workshop began with the 20th Novelty in long-term treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis It has been 30 years since the first meeting of PrEP (PrEP) as an outstanding biomedical topic.

“International AIDS conferences are always in English, not everyone speaks englishEven those who have had the opportunity to travel or watch the conference now will actually miss many details; therefore, we are holding this workshop as part of one of the Foundation’s missions, namely Share knowledge with professionals and the communitysaid Kahn in his conversation with Tyram.

Kahn, Huésped’s founder and scientific director, recalls a fellow diabetologist approaching him in the hospital in the first few years, asking if they had really grown patient enough to talk at the dinner table.

“When I told him yes, he replied that it was ‘very rare’ and I replied that at his congress They can really learn how they feel by listening to someone who has to inject insulin twice a day‘, he called.

For experts, “doctors and researchers can learn a lot from civil society, social scientists, and they can learn from us; it’s a way of socializing knowledge.”

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In 1993, when the first seminar was held, No highly effective antiretroviral therapy yetso that people living with HIV can get medicines to reduce symptoms, but the disease is terminal. After the introduction 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 not only could the viral load be temporarily lowered, but that this drop could last as long as the patient was on the drug.” It was very strong. The same thing happened at the symposium when we made the announcement here, and the impact was huge,” Kahn said.

Pedro Cahn, Director of the Fundación Huésped. Photo: Teram.

Huésped’s scientific director recalls that the pivotal moment of these 20 meetings was when Julio Montaner (an Argentinian epidemiologist based in Canada) presented the concept of cure as prevention, now known as “cure as prevention”, to the local community. undetectable = untransmittable

(I=I) This means that if a person is on treatment with an undetectable viral load does not spread 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, After starting to study other issues related to sexual and reproductive health due to the broadening of the foundation’s horizons, we decided to return to the annual format,” he told Télam.

Currently, the Symposium has two conference rooms for parallel sessions and plenary sessions, in which Health experts, social scientists, and the community come together to discuss not just HIV and hepatitis C, but all STDs For example syphilis – a disease that has been growing in recent years – as well as discussing treatments and science news, the meeting also discussed health, community prevention strategies and rights.

“We seek to have a real dialogue between biomedical, social and political decision-makers, three pillars. This is a very specific feature of the global HIV movement, unlike other diseases, it is not a patient’s table at a scientific conference, but It’s the interaction that happens all the time,” assures Leandro Cahn.

The twentieth edition, which runs from Wednesday to Friday of this week, presents new features of the medical topics of long-term treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEp) strategies; Condition.

On the other hand, such as Practical and legal barriers to sex workers’ access to health; this universal health coverage (CUS) and community engagement and interdisciplinary contributions comprehensive preventionand other topics.