The International AIDS Society (IAS) has announced the lineup of speakers for the 23rd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2020), the flagship event IAS organizes every other year.

Scheduled for July 6 to 10 in San Francisco and nearby Oakland, AIDS 2020 is expected to draw over 20,000 people from more than 170 countries.

“The AIDS 2020 plenary program is designed to showcase and accelerate progress in HIV science, research, advocacy and policy,” AIDS 2020 local cochair Monica Gandhi remarked. “It is vital for us to come together this July, as a global community, to discuss critical innovations in biomedical HIV prevention to advances in treatment and monitoring to promising approaches toward a functional cure."

Below is the lineup of plenary speakers and the topic of their presentations. For more details, visit AIDS2020.org.

Tuesday, 7 July 2020

  • Greg Millett, United States 
    “Casualties on the road to ending HIV: Context matters in addressing HIV disparities”
     
  • Reena Rajasuriar, Malaysia 
    “Growing up and growing old with HIV: Health implications and evolving care needs”
     
  • Peter Sands, Switzerland
    “Doubling down: Our X billion-dollar challenge to end AIDS” 
     

Wednesday, 8 July 

  • Deborah L. Birx, United States 
    “HIV targets and beyond: An assessment of progress towards global commitments”

  • José R. Arribas, Spain 
    “ART 2020: Needs and wants” 

  • Lucy Wanjiku Njenga, Kenya
    “Still we rise: The power of resilience among women living with HIV”


Thursday, 9 July  

  • Dayana Hernandez, Costa Rica
    “U=U: A global perspective”

  • Susan Buchbinder, United States
    “Biomedical HIV prevention: Beyond daily oral PrEP” 
  • Thumbi Ndung’u, South Africa 
    “HIV vaccine and cure research: Challenges and opportunities” 
     

Friday, 10 July  

  • Martina Penazzato, World Health Organization
    “Paediatric HIV: We are not done yet!”

  • Celeste Watkins-Hayes, United States
    “The road ahead: Addressing injuries of inequality in the HIV/AIDS pandemic”

  • Andriy Klepikov, Ukraine
    “The global epidemics among people who inject drugs: Time for urgent reform”

Many of the speakers have been featured in POZ. For example, you can read a recent interview with Celeste Watkins-Hayes, PhD, in “Stories of Resilience: Two HIV researchers discuss their recent books on gay men and HIV-positive women.”

The International AIDS Conference is held every other year at a different location across the globe. When it was announced in March 2018 that AIDS 2020 would be held in California, global activists demanded the event be moved off U.S. soil. As a result of the rift, a competing international conference, HIV2020, will be held July 5 to 7 in Mexico City.

For related AIDS 2020 news in POZ, see “Organizers and Elected Officials Launch AIDS 2020 Push [VIDEO],” “An Open Letter From Your AIDS 2020 Conference Coordinating Committee” and click #AIDS 2020.