To coincide with this week’s International Aids Conference 2014 in Melbourne Australia, the journal AIDS and Behaviour is producing a special issue. LSTM’s Dr Miriam Taegtmeyer has acted as a guest editor on the issue.
One of the satellite events at the conference, which sees researchers from around the world meeting with community leaders, policy makers and people living with HIV, includes a number of presenters who have had papers published in the journal. Dr Taegtmeyer has worked closely with session organiser, Cheryl Johnson of WHO’s HIV team to coordinate the symposium Realizing the potential for HIV self-testing. HIV self-testing (HIVST), is the process in which a person performs a test and interprets the results in private and has huge potential to scale-up access to HIV testing and counselling. The satellite session, which takes place on Tuesday evening (22nd July), sees a number of speakers from different organisations look at research into the use of HIVST in real world settings.
Among those presenting is Dr Nicola Desmond, Lecturer at LSTM, Wellcome Trust Research Fellow and Head of Social Science at the Malawi-Liverpool Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme based in Malawi. Dr Desmond will deliver a talk entitled: Introducing HIVST technologies for couples in resource poor contexts: a case study in urban Malawi.
Dr Taegtmeyer said: “HIVST is an emerging approach that is both well accepted and potentially cost-effective. It can be empowering to those who would not otherwise test. To further look at its potential, LSTM and the WHO are held the first global symposium to examine the legal, ethical, gender, human rights and public implications of HIVST, and this week’s meeting will allow us to build on the work of that initial symposium. It is vital that we work together to further examine the impact if HIVST and its links to post-test services as well as assessing the potential risks and benefits that might come with any scale-up.”
AIDS and Behavior Volume 18, Issue 4 Supplement, July 2014 Special issue on HIV self-testing
Issue Editors:Miriam Taegtmeyer,Cheryl Johnson,Rachel Baggaley
ISSN: 1090-7165 (Print) 1573-3254 (Online)