USIS Washington File - June 12, 2007
Cheryl Pellerin, USINFO Staff Writer

More than 1,500 such people -- from partner organizations, governments, nongovernmental organizations and faith-based groups, and private-sector representatives from around the world -- will gather June 16-19 in Kigali, Rwanda, for the 2007 HIV/AIDS Implementers' Meeting.

"The theme of the meeting is Scaling Up Through Partnerships," said Dr. Thomas Kenyon, principal deputy U.S. global AIDS coordinator and chief medical officer in the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. "We fully recognize that though the U.S. government is leading a global response to HIV/AIDS through bilateral and multilateral support, we can't do it alone."

Meeting sponsors include the government of Rwanda; the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS; the U.N. Children's Fund; the World Bank; and the World Health Organization.

"The United States government has made a very large commitment to target HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the hardest-hit countries, which are mainly in sub-Saharan Africa," U.S. first lady Laura Bush said during a June 11 round table discussion about AIDS in Sofia, Bulgaria, adding that she would visit four countries in Africa in June.

President Bush announced May 30 that he would work with Congress to double the U.S. commitment to fight HIV/AIDS around the world -- to $30 billion -- and reauthorize the legislation that established PEPFAR.

If Congress meets the president's budget request for fiscal year 2008, and with the new $30 billion proposal, the American people will have committed $48.3 billion over 10 years to fight HIV/AIDS. The U.S. contribution is already the largest international health initiative dedicated to a specific disease.

IMPLEMENTING AIDS PROGRAMS

In Rwanda, meeting participants will share lessons learned about how best to implement a variety of HIV/AIDS programs, discuss the future directions of such programs and share best practices related to establishing HIV/AIDS programs and services.

"Implementation means that they're rolling out services to reach their populations, to prevent infections, depending on the local factors that are driving the epidemic," Kenyon said. "There's a lot to be learned from one another and how best to roll out a service like that."

Topics at the five-day meeting include combating HIV in the military, prevention programs for young people, integrating food and nutrition into care and treatment, challenges in anti-retroviral therapy scale up (moving from small groups to larger groups), implementing laboratory quality assurance and national disease surveillance.

"PEPFAR is now in its fourth year, so we have a wealth of experiences to share," Kenyon said. "More than 80 percent of our partners are from indigenous organizations, and they're working at some 15,000 sites."

Many programs have multiple international partners. Partners for a project to develop a nationwide electronic data system for monitoring the national AIDS treatment program in Malawi, for example, include the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Malawi Ministry of Health, the government of Taiwan Department of Health and the U.K. AIDS charity "Lighthouse."

SHARING EXPERIENCE

More than 500 project summaries to be presented at the meeting represent a few of the programs in place around the world that focus on AIDS prevention, care and treatment. Summary titles illustrate the wide range of projects and services:

- Impact of safe blood-bank screening and transfusion practices in Mozambique.

- Challenges of HIV testing and counseling in health facilities, all countries.

- Integrating HIV and tuberculosis services in district hospitals in Kenya.

- Preventing HIV transmission among sex workers in Russia.

- HIV drug-resistance survey in Vietnam.

- Monitoring and evaluating HIV prevention for most-at-risk populations, all countries.

- Partnerships for improving health care worker safety in Botswana.

"Every presentation is about how to do something," Kenyon said. "And we've actually encouraged people to tell us how not to do something, so we can learn from mistakes. I could characterize it as a how-to meeting."

More information about the HIV/AIDS Implementers' Meeting is available at the meeting Web site.

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