Every two years there is a giant international AIDS conference. The IAC. The last one was in Vienna and next year it is in Washington DC. Alternating with these IAC conferences is the IAS conference, run by the same organisation, but attended mostly by scientists. One just ended in Rome.

There were several major issues discussed at this conference. It is time to put them into perspective.

We have all heard that starting antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV at higher CD4 cell counts is better for them. This has been proven. And treating people living with HIV protects their sexual partners. Of course it does. This has led some people to talk about 'treatment as prevention'. This is nonsense and hype. People with HIV have a right to treatment and we need no other reason to treat them. If it has a public health impact by preventing infections in their sexual partners, fine. It it does not, we are going to do it anyway. So it makes no difference to our advocacy and action. And we cannot let up on other prevention activities.

We also heard that if negative people in discordant relationships take antiretrovirals then they have a lower chance of being infected. But if their partners are on treatment, why would they take medication? Why waste antiretrovirals on negative people when we cannot get them to positive people?

We now know that women who take hormonal contraception have a slightly higher chance of acquiring and transmitting HIV. This has been hypothesised since the midnineties. Counselling is needed.

If you are interested in more analysis from the conference just let [him] know.

[him] moderator