Reports from the conference

Introduction

The International AIDS Conferences are held every two years, and alternate between a developed and a developing country. Approximately 25,000 people attend and over 4,500 research studies are presented.

This year the conference had very few new scientific advances in terms of new drugs or treatment strategies, but it did have a few controversial studies. These large conferences focus more on epidemiology, prevention, policy, access to treatment and issues relating to social exclusion (drug users, sex workers, MSM, gay men, young people, sexual violence, women’s rights, etc). These issues are covered in tracks C, D and E of the programme. Tracks A and B cover basic science and clinical science respectively.

Conference abstracts (reduced summaries of each study) are all available online, as are many of the powerpoint slides, web casts, transcriptions and daily ‘rapporteur’ summaries. Abstracts are accessed via the online conference programme. At the bottom of each daily programme (you need to scroll right down to find the abstract session) is a link to the searchable database.

As it is difficult to find, this is the direct URL for the posters
http://www.aids2008.org/Pag/PosterExhibition.aspx?presType=PE&D=04&S=621

For the programme
http://www.aids2008.org/Pag/PAG.aspx

This i-Base report includes references to a range of studies – from major presentations and large studies, to overview summaries and to examples of single posters. It is not meant to cover everything that happened, but to give an overview of some of the key themes.

Hyperlinks are either directly to the abstracts or to appropriate programme pages that include further links to abstracts, powerpoint slides or webcasts and abstracts.