A Decade of Progress

TREAT Asia Hosts 10th Annual Network Meeting

March  2011— Faced with a growing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the most populous region of the world, TREAT Asia was founded in 2001 to help spearhead a comprehensive regional response to the epidemic. Ten years later, HIV/AIDS specialists from across Asia gathered in Bali in October 2010 to commemorate a decade of successful collaboration at the 10th TREAT Asia Network Annual Meeting.

More than 140 HIV/AIDS specialists from 16 countries attended the four-day meeting, which this year had a strongly scientific focus. "TREAT Asia's network meetings are bringing key scientific and clinical issues to the forefront of their agenda," said Mervyn Silverman, M.D., M.P.H., an expert on AIDS and public health who provides guidance to TREAT Asia as chair of amfAR's program advisory council.

The scientific community's growing optimism about recent advances in HIV prevention and progress toward a cure was reflected in numerous presentations by network members and visiting international AIDS experts. These included an overview of new research into a cure from Jeffrey Laurence, M.D., amfAR's senior scientific consultant; and a discussion of recent studies on preventing HIV by using antiretroviral drugs (a method known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP), by Kenneth Mayer, M.D., of Brown University and Fenway Health. TREAT Asia Network member Nittaya Phanuphak, M.D., of the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre, presented her findings from an innovative TREAT Asia-supported study that looks at anal cancer risk among HIV-positive men who have sex with men.

TREAT Asia members have made significant advances in strengthening care and treatment in the region over the network's ten-year history. A recent highlight has been TREAT Asia's growing education program, which has included workshops on research methods, scientific writing, epidemiology, and research ethics.