Hawaiʻi to Zero: State of the Art and Current Efforts in HIV Cure and Prevention

December 5, 2015, ½ day, CME Conference event at Sullivan Conference Center
Sponsored for the 1st time by the Hawaiʻi Center for AIDS (HICFA), John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa.

HICFA is a University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents’ approved Center for Excellence in HIV-related research, teaching and care. This conference launched HICFA’s ‘Hawaiʻi to Zero: HIV cure/ prevention initiative.’ Mr. Timothy Brown (the ‘Berlin patient’) came to Hawaiʻi to participate in this campaign and speak about his experiences being the only known person cured of HIV. This conference was intended to raise awareness of the possibility of HIV cure and to also highlight current perspectives on HIV prevention efforts. We invited a community of physicians, ancillary medical personnel, community stake holders (such as the AIDS service organization), and the public (including HIV-infected individuals).

Topics discussed included:

• The state of the art in HIV cure research: why such research is important and how Hawaiʻi intends to contribute to these efforts
• HIV prevention efforts in Hawaiʻi, and what the contribution to HIV prevention might be if surveillance-based data is used to relink patients to HIV care.

Other Highlights

• We opened the University of Hawaiiʻ Clinics at Kakaʻako, blessed the clinic, and invited people to tour inside.
• We offered a celebratory lunch on the JABSOM lawn.

Photos from the event

Mahalo to UHMED for these photos of the conference and photos of the new clinic.