The 2011 Caribbean HIV Conference: Strengthening Evidence To Achieve Sustainable Action was due to commence on Friday evening with more than 2,000 individuals from across the region in attendance.
These individuals represent a wide range of interests, perspectives, and backgrounds, but they all share a common goal — to take part in forming a collaborative and sustainable response to the HIV epidemic in the Caribbean region.
The 2011 Caribbean HIV Conference takes place November 18–21, 2011, in Nassau, The Bahamas.
“This evening’s opening ceremony is designed to provide attendees with an informative, dynamic, and culturally meaningful introduction to the conference,” said conference co-chair Prof. Daisy Gely of the Medical Sciences Campus, University of Puerto Rico. “We are all looking forward to marking the beginning of a collaborative and productive 4 days.”
The theme for this year’s conference, Strengthening Evidence To Achieve Sustainable Action, focuses on identifying a viable path that can be maintained in the future regional response to HIV.
“In the process of identifying the theme for this Conference, we reviewed the Caribbean’s HIV experience over the last three decades or so, and identified two critical and related concepts that we felt should be central to the Conference program — sustainability and the importance of evidence in guiding the strategies that will attain this goal,” said conference planning committee member Roger McLean of the University of the West Indies at St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. “Sustainability is a key challenge facing the regional HIV response, and, to confront it effectively, we need to carefully evaluate what has and hasn’t worked well previously, share good practices and lessons learned, and work together in their application through more integrated approaches.”
A major objective is that the conference will establish a special committee that will present preliminary recommendations to form the basis for a sustainability action plan. “We see the conference itself as a key component in the future,” said conference planning committee member Osborne Nurse, who will lead the Caribbean HIV Conference’s special session on sustainability. “We see it as an activity that can dovetail into a regional strategic framework and be aligned with one or more of the key strategic objectives of such a plan.”
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