December 4, 2017 — December 9, 2017
The 19th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA 2017) was held December 4-9 in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire and organized sessions under the theme Africa: Ending AIDS-delivering differently. AVAC was there along with many of our partners participating in sessions both before and during the conference. Below we’ve provided overview materials and highlighted key sessions and issues.
Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum (BHPF) Pre-conference Session
Hosted by the New HIV Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society (NHVMAS), in collaboration with a number of partners including WACI Health and the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA), this session explored data trends in Africa, hot topics in prevention research and African leadership in prevention research. Check out this blog covering the forum by Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan of the New HIV Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society (NHVMAS)! Find more information at the BHPF website.
Key Population Pre-Conference Session
Hosted by African Men for Sexual and Health Rights (AMSHeR), African Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA), Gender Dynamix/Southern Africa Trans Forum, the Coalition of African Lesbians (CAL) and other networks of key populations (KP), the theme for this pre-conference session was Onto the African Map: Youth Key Populations and HIV.
Satellite Session
WHO and the OPTIONS Consortium sponsored a session titled, Making the Case for PrEP for Women: What we know and experiences to date to provide an overview what we know and have learned about delivering oral PrEP to women, in particular adolescent girls and young women. Presenters reviewed the evidence, the status of oral PrEP rollout for women, and opportunities for oral PrEP delivery for women through the private sector. A facilitated panel with the audience discussed the challenges, innovative solutions and future direction for Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Satellite Session
Health GAP and AVAC hosted a workshop on the planning process for PEPFAR’s Country Operational Plans (COP). Advocates learned about changes to the 2018 process, reviewed advocacy resources, explored strategies to increase PEPFAR investment in community priorities and tried out tools for analyzing PEPFAR data.
ICASA on Social Media
See the social media conversation on all things ICASA via the hashtag #ICASA2017. AVAC also covered the conference on Facebook and Twitter.