Fiocruz participates for the first time with a stand at the International AIDS Conference

Researchers from the Evandro Chagas National Institute of Infectious Diseases (INI/Fiocruz) will be attending the 25th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024), which takes place in the German city of Munich from July 22nd to 26th. The event is organized by the International Aids Society (IAS) and brings together scientists, managers, activists and representatives of the largest research institutions working on HIV/Aids. The Institute will also be present in the Conference's exhibition space, together with Farmanguinhos and Bio-Manguinhos. Fiocruz will have a stand at the event for the first time and will be represented by all three units.

In this edition of the event, the Institute is represented in 49 scientific papers with the participation of its researchers, including 13 scientific sessions (including pre-conference events), 05 presentations of oral abstracts (posters), and 28 posters and 03 e-posters, on topics related to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis and mpox, among others. Additionally, the director of INI, Valdiléa Veloso, and the head of the Clinical Research Laboratory in STI, HIV/Aids (LapClin Aids), Beatriz Grinsztejn, are part of the event's organizing committee.

INI is the organizer of the Satellite Symposium Building on evidence to foster person-centred PrEP services: The ImPrEP experience, on 03/23, at 7 a.m. (2 a.m. Brasília time).

The symposium will be opened by the director of INI, Valdiléa Veloso, together with the director of the Department of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Viral Hepatitis and Sexually Transmitted Infections of the Ministry of Health, Draurio Barreira; and will feature presentations by INI researchers Lucilene de Freitas, Mayara Secco, Thiago Torres and Cristina Pimenta; and by the medical vice-chancellor of Research at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia, Carlos Cárceres.

In the Global Village, the Conference space dedicated to the work of communities and activists, INI community educator Toni Araújo plays the character PrePina Blue, a housewife who talks to her guests about health while cooking. It is a video talk show to disseminate information about combined prevention and treatment of HIV, as well as other STIs. With simple, accessible language and a lot of humor, the interviewees are researchers, health professionals and digital influencers working in peripheral communities in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro.

Beatriz Grinsztejn takes over as IAS president

This year's International AIDS Conference has a special reason to be proud of the entire scientific community in Brazil and throughout Latin America. For the first time, the presidency of the IAS will be held by a Brazilian scientist: infectious disease specialist and INI researcher Beatriz Grinsztejn - responsible for LapClin Aids. Grinsztejn is one of the global exponents of clinical studies on HIV. She will succeed Australian researcher Sharon Lewin as president for the 2024-2026 term.

Since 1988, when the IAS was created, the presidency of the Society has been held by the most prominent scientists researching HIV/AIDS, such as French researcher Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (Pasteur Institute), who discovered HIV in 1983 and chaired the IAS for the 2012-2014 biennium.

The researcher had her profile published in this month's Lancet magazine.