12th World AIDS Conference, Geneva, June 28 - July 3: How to Participate from Home
The World AIDS Conference, the most important single meeting on AIDS, now occurs once every two years; the last one was in Vancouver in July 1996, and the next will be in Durban, South Africa, July 9-14, 2000. This year over 10,000 people will attend the 12th World AIDS Conference in Geneva, Switzerland, starting June 28; a record 7,300 abstracts have been submitted, and about 6,000 of them will be presented or published at the conference. (The theme of this year's conference is "Bridging the Gap"--in prevention programs and access to treatment between the countries with established market economies, and the resource-poor countries where 90% of people with HIV now live.)Those not going to Geneva can receive video coverage as well as detailed summaries on the World Wide Web, at any time 24 hours a day, during the conference and for months after. They can also participate in discussions of conference topics through email lists. In some ways it is possible to follow the news better through the Internet than by being in Geneva, since many sessions are simultaneous and it is hard to know in advance what will be important. But teams of experts will attend all the major sessions and write detailed reports of the most important talks; these will be available without charge around the world, often by the next day. And the Internet video will allow users to skip ahead in a lecture, switch to another one at any time, or look back to view a section which only later was recognized as important.
For those without a computer, expert review sessions are available by telephone, or by video in certain cities. And of course AIDS newsletters and other publications will have more extensive and reliable reports than the newspapers. (AIDS Treatment News will report on the Geneva conference mostly in our next two issues, #298 and #299. Issue #298 will be delayed a week and be mailed on July 10, since we will be in Geneva on the regular publication date.)
In addition there will be many local lectures providing expert reviews of the conference; check with AIDS organizations in your area to find out about these. For example, in San Francisco, the University of California AIDS Research Institute and Project Inform will present a Post Geneva Symposium, Monday July 22, 2-5 p.m. on the UCSF campus; for more information, see http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu.
Below are some of the major Web sites for following the results of the conference, official email discussion lists, and some other reviews by telephone or video. All of the information listed in this article is available without charge.
Those following the conference should be aware that it is divided into four major tracks:
Track A: Basic Science
Track B: Clinical Science and Care
Track C: Epidemiology, Prevention, and Public Health
Track D: Social and Behavioral Science.
In addition there are officially-recognized "satellite" sessions (in two categories, commercial and non-commercial), and many community and skills-building programs organized or recognized by the conference. There will undoubtedly be public meetings which are not part of the official schedule, but it is hard to learn about these in advance; we only know of a handful, all of them by pharmaceutical companies (which could afford to spread the word independently). We will watch for others through the general literature table at the conference.
Web Sites
(website no longer available), primary official conference Web site. The conference program, including titles and authors of oral and poster presentations, became available on June 15; you can search the approximately 6,000 titles for any word which appears in the title (choose the Schedule button and follow the instructions provided). The abstracts of these presentations will be placed online later, at about the time the conference begins, and they will be searchable as well. Much more information, including industry and community "satellite" sessions, will also be on this site.
Because Web users around the world could overload a single computer during the conference, the organizers have set up "mirror" sites, other computers with the same material. If you cannot get through at the address above, try one of the following:
(website no longer available), the official conference "webcast" site. Up to 50 lectures each day will be videotaped and placed on the Internet through this site--allowing people around the world to see the slides presented as well as hear the talks. These lectures should be online about eight hours after they are presented. This site will also have short written summaries of each day of the conference. The lectures will be available 24 hours a day until the end of 1999. Up to 250 selected oral sessions will be posted this way.
The webcast will be handled through many different computers on all continents, so it can be used by thousands of people at once.
A technical support desk will be open until one month after the conference, to assist users who may have trouble downloading and installing the free software which their Web browsers need in order to view this video; before calling, check the technical assistance page which will be on the site. If you do need assistance, call the Webcast Help Desk in Atlanta, 404-836-2186; it will be open 24 hours a day during the conference, then from 4:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern time through July 31.
This program is made possible by a grant from Gilead Sciences, Foster City, California. It is being run by MediTech Media Ltd. (USA), in Atlanta.
(website no longer available), next-day conference summaries. Each evening a team of over a dozen leading AIDS researchers and technical writers will review that day's presentations, and write extensive summaries which will be available the next day around the world. HealthCare Communications Group, which organized this project, has similarly covered several other major AIDS and cancer conferences, producing extensive and in-depth reports of key presentations. Each day's summary can be read in an hour or two, providing a much faster overview than the webcast videos. And these reviews will include poster and other sessions which otherwise may not be widely reported.
CME (continuing medical education) credits are available. This program is funded by grants from six pharmaceutical companies.
http://www.iapac.org, the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care. IAPAC will publish conference reports on the Web, and will upload a few complete posters (not just the abstracts). Due to the expense, only about 20 selected posters will be available through this program, out of the thousands at the conference.
On July 2, two discussions of treatment options by leading HIV experts will be made available through the Web. "New Strategies for Sustained HIV Suppression," a two-hour satellite symposium, and a separate one-hour "Evolving Tactics for Sustained HIV Suppression," will be broadcast by MEDIVISION. These programs are funded by DuPont-Merck Pharmaceutical Company (soon to become DuPont Pharmaceuticals).
Discussion Forums by Email
The 12th World AIDS Conference has set up six email discussion forums, giving those who cannot go to the conference a chance to participate and be heard. More than 500 people have signed up for one or more of these lists so far.
The six topics--roughly in order of number of subscribers, with the most popular topics first--are:
Community-based research;
Access to treatment and care;
Human rights;
Sex work;
Networking among people living with HIV;
Immigration.
Also, there is an information list for journalists.
Anybody with email can join these lists to receive the messages, or send messages (including anonymous communications if desired). You can see an archive of the earlier messages on the Web.
More information is available at http://www.fdp.org/forums.html, or by email at aids98.community@hivnet.ch.
Telephone and Video Reports
Telephone conference call, July 2, San Francisco AIDS Foundation. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation will conduct an interactive telephone call on July 2, while the conference is still in session, discussing what has happened so far. Six research physicians will be on the panel, which will be moderated by Ron Baker, Ph.D., of the AIDS Foundation. This call will begin at noon Pacific time, 3:00 p.m. Eastern time, 9:00 p.m. (21:00) Central Europe time. It is part of the Beta Live series, which is supported by an educational grant from Roche Laboratories, Inc. If you miss the call, you can still hear a recording.
Advance registration is required. To register to be on the interactive call, phone 800-707-BETA. After the call, if you want to hear a recording by telephone, call 800-550-9235 any time.
Video conference in five U.S. cities, July 2, American Foundation for AIDS Research. On July 2, the American Foundation for AIDS Research will present a two-hour live video conference in five U.S. cities: Chicago (Westin Hotel), Los Angeles (Century Plaza Hotel), New York (Essex House Hotel Nikko), San Francisco (Grand Hyatt on Union Square), Washington D.C. (Westin Hotel). A panel of four research physicians and four activists will be moderated by Kevin Robert Frost of AmFAR. RSVP to either 800-572-0661, or khawkins@medisolutions.com, or by fax to 212-696-9295; include your name and phone number, and the city where you will be attending.
Post-conference professional and community updates, July 9, video in 15 U.S. cities. On July 9 two panels of experts will review the conference; these sessions will be broadcast by video teleconference to auditoriums in 15 U.S. cities, and available without charge to everyone involved in HIV/AIDS. The first panel (3:30 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. Pacific time, starting at 5:30 p.m. Central time and 6:30 p.m. Eastern time) is for persons with HIV; the second panel, starting half an hour later (5:15 p.m. Pacific time, 7:15 p.m. Central, 8:15 p.m. Eastern) is for all healthcare professionals and HIV counselors. Persons can attend both.
You can attend this presentation in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York (live), Newark, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C.
The program is sponsored by the University of Alabama School of Medicine, with funding from Glaxo Wellcome. One hour of CME credit is available for the professional program.
For registration information, call 877-201-6742 (toll free).
A month after the conference, on July 28, a two-hour panel discussion, "The Geneva Report: Treatment Highlights from the 12th World AIDS Conference" will be broadcast by satellite to hundreds of downlink sites in the U.S., and will also be available through the Internet. This program is a joint project of the Johns Hopkins University AIDS Service, the University of California, San Francisco AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital, and the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration. More information will be available on http://www.aids.edu and on http://hivinsite.ucsf.edu.
12th World AIDS Conference
Updated CD-ROM
A CD-ROM with searchable abstracts plus slides of the major presentations may be available about 4-8 weeks after the conference. Besides the abstracts, it will have "slides and/or text of plenary talks and track symposia, updated extended summaries and key slides of other oral sessions"--about 3,000 or more slides. It is expensive, about 150 Swiss franks if ordered before the conference, 250 if ordered later.
For more information, fax Congrex Sweden AB, Attn: AIDS 98, +46 8 661-8155.
Other Geneva Reports
This list is not complete, and many programs are poorly publicized. Watch for announcements of others, especially on Web sites or through local AIDS organizations.
