What came out of CROI?

[Anne]

Hi everyone…

The annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) took place February 13–16, 2017 in Seattle, Washington.
What caught your attention from the conference? Anything interesting?

Topic

[Anne]

The conference was full of interesting data –PrEP (and long acting injectables as a promising way to remove adherence from the equation), new data on ARVs, and lots of implementation science …like the use of economic incentives in patients very difficult to treat.

I have always loved the opening ceremony at CROI. If you missed it … Gerald H. Friedlander form Yale gave a stimulating talk about the environment (the soil), the virus (the seed) and the wind (social conditions) that drove the HIV epidemic (http://www.croiwebcasts.org/console/player/29436?mediaType=audio&).
He drew important parallel between HIV and TB. The session ended with Kenneth Cole (yes, the shoe designer) who said, among many things, that dressing well the crowd was going to be more difficult that curing HIV.

I was reminded again that HIV is a disease that affects the global community in many different ways and it is important to be reminded that we are part of a community—HIV is important not because of the profound research …but because of the people that live with it and its effects on human lives.
Ultimately, progress will depend on the contributions and partnerships with these affected communities to create greater political will and investment in line with their own identified health needs. And for me, this is the essence of GPP!

[JORGE]

I really like your points. I’ve had some meetings with doctors after CROI and that’s also for me the big feedback: PrEP. I strongly believe that we have the tolls for ending the HIV epidemic but we need to make HIV again a priority and involve in the right way community to implement those tools in the best way.

[Pamela]

I guess what caught my attention from CROI is the realisation that there is quite a lot of advances on the way in prevention methods for HIV and AIDS, In addition to developing and manufacturing synthetic drugs to treat and prevent HIV, researchers are working on ways to use our own immune systems to fight and prevent HIV infection, through the use of broadly neutralising antibodies which are produced by the immune system of some people living with HIV, Prof Richard from NIAID provided an overview of the recent advances in the field and what antibodies could mean for future vaccine and HIV treatment options.

[Cale]

Most interesting report for me was the third(?) apparent case of HIV acquisition despite high PrEP adherence (and in a demonstration project no less): http://www.aidsmap.com/page/3118230/

Seems like analysis is ongoing, so will be interesting to see future findings when they’re released.

[Thandi Marry]

Three-drug regimen beats XDR-TB in first trial, this is the most topic that attract my eyes when I was reading the CROI reports not saying that other topic where not good it is just TB its a problem in our country especial for PLHIV and inmates ( Prisoners )

[Author]

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