{"id":40155,"date":"2021-03-12T07:45:45","date_gmt":"2021-03-12T07:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/?p=40155"},"modified":"2021-03-29T18:18:36","modified_gmt":"2021-03-29T18:18:36","slug":"28th-conference-on-retroviruses-and-opportunistic-infections-croi-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/htb\/40155","title":{"rendered":"28th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2021)"},"content":{"rendered":"

6 \u2013 10 March 2021, virtual conference<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/strong>Introduction<\/h2>\n
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For many people, CROI 2021 this anniversary marks the first recognition of the potential global risk from COVID-19: the start of a difficult year, unimaginable before. <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A year ago, as delegates were either arriving in Boston or preparing to fly, CROI rapidly adapted a few days before the meeting was due to start, to become the first large virtual conference.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This year CROI was planned as a fully virtual meeting, and included approximately 3500 registered delegates.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The programme was exciting as it always is, with a significant and appropriate focus on COVID-19, including first presentations for new treatments. It also included important presentations on new and pipeline HIV drugs for both prevention and treatment, many using long-acting formulations.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The virtual meeting retained the regular CROI format and included the options to discuss presentations using chat and Q&A options to ask questions about oral presentations in real time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One advance \u2013 a good one \u2013 is a new format for the posters. Rather than 1000+ posters, available as PDF files, the virtual meeting has edited posters to around six summary slides with a 4-minute narrative by the presenter (now called a \u2018science spotlight\u2019). Each virtual poster also allows an online dialogue with the presenter that remains online for general viewing and is a pretty good way to retain something of the direct dialogue that we\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another change though was more difficult was suggesting that a 6-month pay wall before the presentations become open access. CROI has always developed a leading role in democratising access to the latest medical research and at the start of the conference even the abstract book was planned to need a paid subscription. This is disappointing and will hopefully be rethought.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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At least one community sign on letter with more than 200 organisations and individuals has already asked for the whole meeting to have a much shorter window to open access. As a result, the abstract book is now available:
\nhttps:\/\/www.croiconference.org\/vcroi-2021<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Currently, content on the main conference website is only accessible to delegates, although this decision might be reviewed.
\n<\/span>www.vcroi2021.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even if all links are not yet active to non-delegates, i-Base reports will still include hyperlinks to the abstract, webinars and full presentations. We apologise for this and hope CROI reconsiders their decision after the meeting.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Reports in HTB will also therefore focus on shorter articles to emphasise summary conclusions,\u00a0with comment, as a way to cover a wider range of presentations.<\/p>\n

Early reports will be added to this page as they become available.<\/p>\n