EVENTS
HIV and AIDS: our collaborations with Africa
24/09/2010 10:30 am
- Language: English
- Location: CHL - Amphithéâtre
- Contact: carole.devaux@crp-sante.lu
HIV and AIDS: our collaborations with Africa - The purpose of the meeting is to gather the AIDS Reference Laboratories (ARLs) of Belgium and Luxembourg on the thematic of HIV/AIDS and collaborations in Africa. What are our activities developed in such perspective? What are challenges and expectations in this respect? The meeting will be organised in two parts: (i) lectures given by five opinion leaders, involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa and (ii) a series of oral presentations given by representatives of ARLs involved in such collaborations.
Outline of the thematic:
An estimated 22.4 million people are living with HIV worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africa is more heavily affected by HIV and AIDS than any other region of the world with around two thirds of the HIV-infected patients global total. In 2008 around 1.4 million people died from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and 1.9 million people became infected with HIV. Many African countries have made significant progress in their treatment programmes in recent years and it is likely that the next few years will see many more people receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, such improvement in treatment access is inevitably accompanied with a series of challenges related to the clinical follow-up of the patient leading to a minimal biological follow-up. The other main challenge is to provide adapted second line treatment therapy. On a more virological aspect, new questions arise on specific resistance pathways that could be developed by non-B HIV-1 subtypes predominant in Africa, in response to ART, and how these specific pathways might influence treatment response.
390,000 children became infected in 2008 in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these children acquire HIV from their HIV-infected mothers during pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding. With successful interventions the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission can be reduced to 2%. However, such interventions are still not widely available and an estimated 1 500 children get newly infected with HIV each day. The mortality rate of HIV-infected children in sub-Saharan Africa is high as such 50% before the age of 2 years. Children have frequently been treated with antiretroviral combinations that are insufficiently potent to suppress the virus, leading to resistance. In addition, treatments demand a high level of adherence to avoid the selection of drug resistant virus. Improved paediatric antiretroviral treatment programmes are therefore needed. Finally, the HIV and AIDS epidemic has already significantly affected Africa's economic development and many parts of African society. The epidemic is putting strain on the health sector, decrease average life expectancy, leave behind orphans, increase the demand for care for those living with HIV and affects the number of health workers.
Several of the ARLs (including the Retrovirology Laboratory of Luxembourg) are involved in collaborations with African countries and have to face those challenges. The meeting is viewed as a good opportunity to (i) identify or clarify priorities and pitfalls in the current context of collaborations with Africa, related to ART implementation (ii) share information and expertise between ARLs on technological or organisational aspects, (iii) stimulate collaborative efforts between ARLs in this respect. Priorities and pitfalls will be reminded to the audience, with a place given to the African and to the Occidental point of view, respectively. The technological state-of-the-art on monitoring ART resistance, ART efficacy and on HIV paediatric care in resource limited settings will be presented before opening a session dedicated to the ARLs for presenting their own work.
Speakers:
- Pr TF Rinke de Wit, Faculty of Medicine of the Universiteit van Amsterdam
- Pr N Clumeck, Infectious Diseases Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Saint Pierre, Bruxelles
- Dr Valérianne Leroy, U893 INSERM, Université Victor Segalen, Bordeaux, France
- Dr Rony Zachariah, MSF Luxembourg
- Dr Agnes Binagwaho, Commission Nationale de Lutte Contre le SIDA, Rwanda
- ARL representatives