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Main outcomes of the AIDS 2010 Conference in Vienna, Austria

Introduction
The main theme of the recent XVIII AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria was: “Rights here, right now”. Although plenty of time was given to presentations on all aspects of governance and policy, the strong theme of human rights resounded throughout the week.

On the third day of the conference, many participants joined local residents on the HIV and Human Rights March through the streets of Vienna¹. This highlighted the plight of many of the populations who are especially at risk of contracting HIV and the lack of scientifically proven interventions to protect them. These populations include sex workers, men who have sex with men, and intravenous drug users. The lack of interventions to prevent vertical transmission and to protect women also came to the fore as a violation of human rights².

Another theme which was strongly emphasised was the gap between the access to treatment services for intravenous drug users and the knowledge that is available at this time. This was the main objective behind the “Vienna Declaration” which calls for evidence-based drug policies, based on surveys over the last years showing that higher penalties imposed on drug use does not reduce the use of drugs significantly³.

Tightly linked to this, are the laws that criminalise some of the most at-risk populations such as injecting drug users, and men who have sex with men and sex workers. These laws create stigma and discrimination and only serve to diminish access to both prevention and treatment services.

On the last day of the conference, the draft second edition of The Good Participatory Practice Guidelines (GPP) for Biomedical HIV Prevention Trials was released.

Women’s Rights
The news of the success of the CAPRISA 004 trial was welcomed. The proof of concept of a microbicide which can be used by women to prevent HIV infection was hailed as a great stride towards enabling women to protect themselves. This development will have the ability to empower women to take HIV prevention into their own hands⁴.

The Vienna Declaration
The declaration was drafted by members from the International AIDS Society, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy and the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and was launched as the official declaration of the XVIII International AIDS Conference⁵.
Up to date, over 16 000 endorsements have been received for the Vienna Declaration. For a list of the most noteworthy signatories click here.

New GPP Guidelines
The first edition of these guidelines, published in 2007, were developed by AVAC and UNAIDS. AVAC and UNAIDS released the draft second edition to seek feedback from all those with an interest and expertise in the field of HIV prevention research. Comments will be accepted until 31 October 2010, after which the final second edition will be published.

The GPP guidelines were developed to help researchers, funders and other stakeholders plan HIV-prevention research trials. The guidelines were developed to increase the engagement of communities in such trials and thereby ensuring that the research is meaningful to researchers as well as the communities in which these trials take place.

The GPP Guidelines are available online at: http://www.avac.org/documents or www.unaids.org.

In conclusion
The various topics were presented at the conference under different “tracks”. Track F dealt with “Policy, Law, Human Rights and Political Science” and I end here with a quote from the rapporteur session on this track by Damon Barrett:

“If human rights entwined in national law, they must be translated into national law and policy and they must be realized on the street. Criminalization blocks all of this…. But what I'd like to ask is how do we involve criminalized groups? How do we involve youth? What mechanisms can we put in place to facilitate mothers living with HIV to fight for their own rights? This was somewhat of a gap in the official program…. As long as we criminalize certain group and push them from services, which can act as excellent data collection mechanisms, we'll never get a proper picture of the epidemic.⁶”

Sources

1. ‘Day3_AIDS2010_Press_Release_20_July_2010_ENG.pdf’ http://www.aids2010.org/WebContent/File/Day3_AIDS2010_Press_Release_20_July_2010_ENG.pdf [accessed 17 August 2010].
2. ‘Day5_AIDS2010_Press_Release_22_July_2010_ENG.pdf’ http://www.aids2010.org/WebContent/File/Day5_AIDS2010_Press_Release_22_July_2010_ENG.pdf [accessed 17 August 2010].
3. Evan Wood and others, ‘Vienna Declaration: a call for evidence-based drug policies’, The Lancet, 376 (2010), 310-312 doi:doi: DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60958-0.
4. ‘AIDS2010_Abstracts_Related_to_the_CAPRISA_Study_2.pdf’ http://www.aids2010.org/WebContent/File/AIDS2010_Abstracts_Related_to_the_CAPRISA_Study_2.pdf [accessed 18 August 2010].
5. ‘The Vienna Declaration - Home’ http://www.viennadeclaration.com/ [accessed 17 August 2010].
6. ‘Rapporteur Session_transcript.pdf’ http://globalhealth.kff.org/~/media/Images/AIDS2010/Support%20Files/Rapporteur%20Session_transcript.pdf [accessed 17 August 2010].

Author:Marike Kotzé
Reviewed by: Jean Fourie
Contact: afroaidsinfo@mrc.ac.za
Date: September 2010

Last updated: 3 September 2010