Fighting HIV/AIDS

Ending the Epidemic

5th Annual N.E. Conference on HIV Treatment & Prevention

A free community based conference in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health held yearly at the State Laboratories of the Department of Public Health, 305 South Street near Forest Hills Station.

Saturday, November 21, 2009 Info/Registration Call 617.945.5350

AGENDA

8:30 - 9:30 -- Registration/Breakfast/visiting information tables

8:30 -- Exhibit booths open

• Info tables representing enrolling clinical trials in New England and exhibit tables for AIDS Service Organizations and industry

9:30--Dr. Alfred DeMaria, Medical Director, Bureau of Infectious Disease

Massachusetts Department of Public Health

• Opens Conference - Welcome
• Explains day’s agenda & goals

10 - 12 – TREATMENT and PREVENTION

10:00-10:45--Dr. Sigall K. Bell, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

• The Latest News on antiviral treatment
• Immunological effects of successful HAART
• treatment of early infection
• What intervention in early infection especially prior to seroconversion means for reducing transmission

10:45-12:00--Dr. Kenneth H. Mayer, Brown University, Miriam Hospital, Fenway Institute

• Implications of research to date on PEP and PREP
• Use of antiretrovirals as tools to reduce transmission
• The use of new medicines in microbicide development as well as early treatment Implications for transmission
• History of the development of efforts
• On going public policy issues

12:00-1:00 lunch, raffle and visiting booths

1:00  Keynotes:

1:00-1:45 Dr. Edmund Tramont, Special Projects, HIV division, National Institutes of Health

• The shape of a successful prevention program-Syphilis example
• Reactions to the white paper on a statewide program to reduce HIV
• How the NIH might participate

1:45-2:00 John Auerbach, Commissioner of Public Health, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

• State Priorities in Response to HIV

2:00-2:30 Kevin Cranston, Director, Bureau of Infectious Disease, Massachusetts Department of Public Health

• State’s efforts toward HIV prevention
• Highly Active Prevention and the National HIV/AIDS Strategy
• The state’s funding of nPEP; anticipated approach to PrEP
• Role of rapid and home-based HIV testing

2:30- 4:30 Treatment/Prevention Panel –OPEN DISCUSSION

Feasibility and Desirability of various public policy initiatives toward reducing HIV transmission in Massachusetts

Dr. Ken Mayer, Brown U., Miriam Hospital & FCHC

• On data regarding the use of antiretrovirals to protect high risk HIV negatives
• New data on microbicides from large trials in Africa and England

Kevin Cranston, Director, Bureau of Infectious Disease, MDPH

• State initiatives to reduce transmission

Dr. Al DeMaria, Medical Director, Bureau of Infectious Disease, MDPH

• Capacity of the MDPH to undertake an open label trial for the testing of a statewide program to reduce transmission

Dr. Edmund Tramont, Special Projects regarding HIV, NIH

• The successes and failures of various prevention efforts

Roundtable with panel and audience reacting to a white paper outlining a program to significantly reduce transmission in Massachusetts.  The object is to provide input toward what issues need to be resolved in order to make the proposed program effective.