Nobody Left Behind

published on September 19, 2013 in Huffingtonpost

I was in London this week attending a meeting on the impact of treatment as prevention (TasP) on Key Affected Populations (KAPS), a gathering of minds, I think, that has the potential to be a pivotal moment in the way we decide to respond to HIV/AIDS in those global "hotspots" where sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM), people who inject drugs (PWID) and transgender people are en masse being denied access to treatment, care and prevention. The end result is that HIV infection rates amongst these groups is in some countries clearly running at rates that we could consider out of control when compared to the rest of the population. As the Millennium Development Goals come to fruition in 2015 we are being faced with a terrible and daunting reality: that these key affected populations are in fact being left behind.

The meeting this week in London forms part of an International AIDS Society led initiative to identify strategies that will maximize the treatment and prevention benefits of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for Key Affected Populations. The meeting in London is a joint consultation of the IAS Advisory Groups on Treatment as Prevention and Key Affected Populations along with other key stakeholders and the hope is that the discussions will kick start the development of a finalized "White Paper" containing recommendations to international organizations and the AIDS community to be presented at the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne, Australia next July.

Michel D. Kazatchkine
Huffingtonpost
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Nobody Left Behind

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