Jennifer Hoy  |  The Alfred Hospital + Monash University

Why am I encouraging you to attend?

This conference will:

• Bring you the latest information on the current status of HIV Cure research – from the bench to clinical studies to how the community perceives the science

• Bring you the latest changes to Antiretroviral Treatment – PrEP and PEP Guidelines, including the results of local studies and international experiences in implementing these prevention technologies; and also hepatitis C treatment

• Enable you to evaluate and review progress of Australia's efforts to achieve 90:90:90 targets by 2020 – 90% of people diagnosed; 90% on treatment; and 90% of treated individuals with virological suppression

Why am I attending?

The conference provides ample opportunity to attend cross discipline symposia addressing critical issues affecting the response to diagnosis, prevention of HIV and provision of quality care for those diagnosed with HIV. I will be able to discuss the opportunities and barriers to ensuring everyone has access to the care they need, in the location they want to receive it. The Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference is the place to hear about research performed locally in Australia and the Region – a place to mentor and encourage our junior researchers. I relish the opportunity to network with colleagues and friends of many years and discuss the changes and challenges we continue to face as clinicians and researchers.

Martin Holt  |  Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW

Why am I encouraging you to attend?

One of the key messages from the program's Theme C focuses on successful ways to engage diverse populations in HIV prevention, including gay and bisexual men, heterosexual people and migrant populations.

Why am I attending?

The Australasian HIV&ADS Conference is a key meeting in my calendar. I use it to learn about key developments in Australasia and the region, discuss my research with interstate colleagues, and gauge the mood and direction of the field. The meeting is important to me in sustaining collaborative relationships, and to identify priority areas for future work.

Why am I encouraging you to attend?

The Australasian HIV&AIDS Conference is one of the few meetings at which the entire HIV sector – affected communities, clinicians, researchers, educators and policymakers - get together to identify new ways forward and debate progress in tackling HIV. The exposure to this range of perspectives is vital to remain informed and engaged.

Bridget Haire  |  The Kirby Institiute, UNSW

I’m looking forward to this year’s conference program that will:

• Address the major strategic issues facing the Australian response to HIV in a rapidly changing environment

• Explore how chaining identities are shaping the epidemic in 2016, with 'PrEP-sters' and 'Undetectable' replacing concepts of sero-status

• Highlight regional challenges and community-led solutions in Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea

Why am I attending?

Just about everything has changed in HIV in recent years, and this conference presents the best opportunity to understand how these significant shifts are affecting the response to HIV in Australia and our region. This conference provides a unique opportunity to understand the epidemic in its context – social, political as well as biomedical. The cultural and political track is the strongest we have seen in years and should not be missed by anyone interested in shaping our response to HIV in the future.

Levinia Crooks  |  ASHM

Why is attending the conference beneficial?

What you can’t get from attending a conference from auditing the sessions from your PC at home/work is the overall experience – the gestalt of the whole event: the vibe of a delegation meeting together; the occasions to talk with colleagues; and the ability to have and link several conversations together from attending various program events. The sharing of ideas is very exciting.

What else is exciting about this year’s program?

This year, the Sexual Health and the HIV&AIDS conference are together. We’re coming to a point where people truly understand that you can’t talk about HIV without talking about STIs [and vice versa] – HIV being one of those important STIs.

For instance, there is considerable concern about the potential for HIV PrEP to drive up STIs. Does PrEP increase people’s risk of STIs or is this higher risk group more likely to test for STIs to begin with?  We’re having this discourse with a number of papers that is looking into that; and being able to treat people with STIs because they are going onto PrEP.

What will you not miss in this year's program?

Innovative ways to improve the demand for testing – an update on the technology and review of programs and novel implementation opportunities:  This paper with Philip Cunningham, Mark Stoove and others looks at different technologies and approaches to HIV testing, addressing the need to making it more available to people – whether dry-blood testing, point-of-care testing, home testing – and also looking at testing frequencies.

On continuing with implementations of HIV testing: I’m looking forward to invited speaker, Valerie Delpeche, who [in a previous conference] spoke on 'HIV trigger testing' with the HIDES program in the UK – where you test somebody if they have some other condition which would make you suspect HIV could either be the cause or co-infection.

Identifying outlier populations and public health interventions to prevent these infections among vulnerable populations, is something of strong importance at this meeting. For instance: People with an established infection, people who aren't necessarily a part of an identifiable community – people who have never even thought about HIV.  These groups of people are unknown to us – as we try to estimate the size of that population, and try and reach people who haven't been diagnosed, and to respond to those less common aspects of the infection.

David Baker  |  General Practitioner, Sydney

Why am I encouraging you to attend?

This is a time of revolutionary advances in our understanding and treatment of blood-borne viruses – HIV, hepatitis B and C.

Australia is leading the world with widespread community and primary care prevention and treatment.

Our National HIV conference is a great opportunity to meet, learn and exchange ideas and to continue the successful partnership between the community, clinicians and researchers.

Photo: Eros, Rundle Street by Adam Bruzzone (2014)