17th International Workshop on Pediatrics & HIV

17th International Workshop on Pediatrics & HIV is organized by Academic Medical Education (AME), Virology Education B.V. (VE) and will be held from Jul 11 - 12, 2025 at Park Inn by Radisson Kigali, Kigali, Kigali, Rwanda.

Description:
Although we have witnessed a dramatic global scale-up of antiretroviral treatment (ART) as well as efforts to prevent vertical HIV transmission in the last decade, there were 150,000 new pediatric infections in 2021 and an estimated 1.68 million children <15 years of age living with HIV. Children are substantially less likely than adults to be diagnosed, initiate treatment, and achieve durable viral suppression. Currently, only 54% are receiving ART, and treatment of pediatric HIV, particularly in infants and young children, remains complex and problematic, with continued use of suboptimal ART formulations and regimens.

Furthermore, adolescents are one of the most rapidly growing populations with HIV; in 2021, there were an estimated 410,000 new HIV infections among young people aged 15- 24 years, accounting for 27% of all new HIV infections globally. HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women are 65% higher than among adolescent boys and young men of the same age, with 4,900 new infections occurring in young women weekly. HIV remains one of the leading causes of death among adolescents living in Africa and among the top 10 causes of death in adolescents globally. The uptake of HIV testing among adolescents has remained low. Programs continue to struggle to reach and retain adolescents in care, and adherence to treatment has special challenges, particularly among those with perinatal infection aging up into adolescence and young adulthood.

As research to improve pediatric HIV diagnosis and care is ongoing, new scientific questions of critical importance have also emerged. In settings with mature ART programs, an increasing proportion of new pediatric infections is attributed to women acquiring HIV infection during pregnancy and breastfeeding, periods of markedly increased risk of HIV acquisition for the mother.  However, the use of newer, highly effective long-acting pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs to prevent HIV acquisition has been limited in pregnant and breastfeeding women due to the limited available data on the pharmacokinetics and safety of these drug during these periods and limited availability in low resource settings where most women with HIV reside. The introduction of the new long-acting agents for treatment and prevention provides important opportunities to identify innovative new approaches and address the next generation of questions around implementation, uptake, and persistence in adolescents and pregnant and breastfeeding people.  The use of newer potent ART regimens, such as dolutegravir, by women living with HIV may affect the sensitivity of rapid nucleic acid diagnostic tests, complicating infant diagnosis.

Meeting Objectives:
The meeting aims at:

• Enhancing communication and encouraging collaboration between junior and senior investigators, north and south, and academia, governmental public health agencies, and industry to promote advances in HIV prevention and care in children, adolescents and families.
• Disseminating knowledge and data exchanged by workshop participants beyond the audience of the live event through posting of all presentations on the meeting website, thus maximizing the impact of the meeting by reaching the whole HIV research community.
• Providing updates on the latest research on new pediatric antiretroviral drugs and treatment and prevention strategies in children and adolescents.
• Understanding how to optimize recognition and treatment of advanced HIV disease in children and adolescents.
• Providing updates on new strategies for HIV prevention in children, adolescents and pregnant women, including long-acting antiretroviral agents and HIV vaccines.
• Evaluating effectiveness of and gaps in programs for the prevention of perinatal HIV transmission and interventions to improve such programs, including evaluation of early infant diagnosis in the current ART era.
• Sharing results of implementation science research on how to optimally implement programs for prevention or treatment of HIV in infants, children, adolescents and pregnant women in developing countries.
• Understanding the complications of long-term HIV infection and its therapy, to enable improved management of HIV in children and adolescents.
• Providing update on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of coinfections, such as tuberculosis and hepatitis C, in children and adolescents.

Learning Objectives:
After participating in this activity, participants will be able to:

• Describe the changing epidemiology of the pediatric HIV epidemic world-wide and the latest recommendations for pediatric and adolescent HIV treatment.
• Summarize optimal prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management strategies against HIV infection in infants, children, adolescents, as well as in pregnant and postpartum women.
• Describe potential complications of HIV and latest HIV treatments in children, adolescents, and pregnant and postpartum women.
• Summarize approaches to prevent, diagnosis and treat important coinfections in HIV-infected children and adolescents.
• Summarize strategies to improve perinatal HIV prevention programs and to better understand continued risk for perinatal transmission in the current era of ART.
• Describe special issues related to HIV infection in adolescents and young people, including mental health challenges, as well as new HIV prevention modalities and programming options for the young population.
• Understand new long-acting prevention technologies and their role in the prevention of HIV in adolescents and pregnant women.