This is an HIV/AIDS Implementers’ Meeting where programme implementers gather from countries around the world to share best practices and lessons learned in the fight against global AIDS.

It is the only meeting of its kind focused specifically on implementation.

Wednesday last, local implementers and other stakeholders involved in the HIV/AIDS response, including school children , gathered at the International Conference Center at Liliendaal to view some of the abstracts that were submitted to the PEPFAR Implementers meeting .

Through the collaborative efforts of the Health Ministry, the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) and the Pan American Health Organisation, two of Guyana’s abstracts were chosen for oral presentation at the upcoming Namibia meeting.

Head of NAPS, Dr Shanti Singh, noted that that this year some 16 abstracts were submitted, most by first time authors.

The two selected pieces deal with Voluntary Blood Donation and an HIV prevention programme engaged in by work-study students.

Health Minister, in his remarks, reminisced on how far Guyana has come in the fight which continues to garner praise from around the world. “Our HIV/AIDS fight has come to a point where few of us who were there from the beginning would have imagined”, he said.

This, he said, is reflective of the unprecedented number of Non – Governmental Organizations in Guyana and the huge interest in voluntary HIV work.

He charged participants to use the forum to acquaint themselves with what their colleagues are doing so as to improve overall effectiveness.

The minister also underscored the need for Guyana’s work to be known and documented correctly, noting that the annals of history must one day be able to reveal the truth about the implementation and establishment of local initiatives.

In this regard, he noted that many persons are unduly taking credit for a number of initiatives, adding that it is critical that the truth be revealed if only for the purpose of the younger generation and for lessons to be learnt.

Most of the abstracts presented earlier focused on prevention and dealt with topics such as Home Based Care- Government in collaboration with NGO’s, and HIV Care and Testing, among others.

Recognizing the need for global networking in HIV/AIDS, Guyana, through its Health Minister recommended to then Secretary of Health Tommy Thompson at a PEPFAR gathering in Geneva in 2004 that the Implementers Meeting be established.

The first meeting was held in Ethiopia, and this year 345 abstracts have been selected to be presented at the upcoming meeting in Namibia.

Reflecting on the global scope of the response to the AIDS epidemic, the abstracts represent research spanning five continents. Through their presentations, authors will share information that will directly impact the future of HIV/AIDS programme implementation.

To this end, the theme, ‘Optimizing the Response: Partnerships for Sustainability’, on which the presentations are based, will focus on what programme implementers are doing to meet the challenges affecting the scale-up of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care.

The meeting’s six research tracks cut across all subject matter areas of HIV/AIDS programming and include:

* Responding to Challenges in HIV Prevention;

* Women and Children;

* Effective HIV Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support Programmes for Men who Have Sex with Men, Drug-users, People in Prisons, and People in Sex Work;

* Evolving Challenges in Treatment, Laboratory, Care and Support Services;

* Performance-based Programming and Systems-strengthening; and

* Cross-cutting Issues.