AIDS 2018

AIDS 2018 – 22nd International AIDS Conference

About AIDS 2018

The International AIDS Conference is the largest conference on any global health issue in the world. First convened during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1985, it continues to provide a unique forum for the intersection of science, advocacy, and human rights. Each conference is an opportunity to strengthen policies and programmes that ensure an evidence-based response to the epidemic.

Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges

The theme of AIDS 2018 is “Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges”, drawing attention to the need of rights-based approaches to more effectively reach key populations, including in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the North-African/Middle Eastern regions where epidemics are growing.

When HIV/AIDS first appeared as a public health threat in the 1980s, the Netherlands faced the challenge head on, embracing scientific evidence and working with populations that other countries marginalized and stigmatized. Today, Amsterdam is a “Fast Track City” that has committed to accelerating action to ensure that the world can reach the ambitious target of ending AIDS by 2030. AIDS 2018 aims to promote human rights based and evidence-informed HIV responses that are tailored to the needs of particularly vulnerable communities — including people living with HIV, displaced populations, men who have sex with men, people in closed settings, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people, women and girls and young people–and collaborate in fighting the disease beyond country borders.

AIDS 2018 Conference Objectives

1. Convene the world’s experts to advance knowledge about HIV, present new research findings, and promote and enhance global scientific and community collaborations in synergy with other health and development sectors.
2. Promote human rights based and evidence-informed HIV responses that are tailored to the needs of particularly vulnerable communities, including people living with HIV, displaced populations, men who have sex with men, people in closed settings, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people, women and girls and young people.
3. Activate and galvanize political commitment and accountability among governments, donors, private sector and civil society for an inclusive, sustainable and adequately financed, multi-sectoral, integrated response to HIV and associated coinfections and comorbidities.
4. Address gaps in and highlight the critical role of HIV prevention, in particular among young people in all their diversity and its integration in a range of health care settings.
5. Spotlight the state of the epidemic and the HIV response in Eastern Europe and Central Asia with a focus on investments, structural determinants and services.