Project
2013 Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum
Led by Morenike Ukpong (Global Health 2012), an email discussion was initiated among the 54 Nigerian alumni who had attended the BIARI programme since its inception. Of these alumni, 20 took part in a survey and a consensus was reached on how to plan for an initial meeting. The objective of the meeting was to bring all past, present and future BIARI Alumni in Nigeria together each year to share lessons learned at BIARI, identify how to apply lessons on global development in Nigeria, and generate new research ideas. The first meeting served as a pre-conference meeting leading to the 2013 Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum (BHPF).
The 2013 BHPF was the first in a series of conferences on biomedical HIV Prevention research and development to be held in Africa. It served as a forum for HIV Prevention researchers, programme managers, policy makers and stakeholders in and around Africa to meet and discuss with regional and international researchers about investments in research and some recent groundbreaking findings in the field. The forum provided a platform for intellectual discussions and sharing of perspectives of stakeholders which could influence the field and HIV prevention research and development in Africa. BIARI alumni shall participate at this conference and hopefully, shall actively participate in dialogues during the conferences to share perspectives on how broader issues on global development can inform HIV prevention research and programming in Nigeria. The outcomes of such dialogue shall inform the development of a paper that shall be published in the African Journal of Reproductive Health, a partner for the 2013 BHPF.
Ukpong and her colleagues have been working with BIARI Global Health convener, Abigail Harrison, to publish outcomes and proceedings of the Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum, and to work toward publication of Morenike's own research on HIV-positive adolescents and research ethics. The following is a summary of publications from this work:
- Two journal special issues focused on the proceedings and outcomes of the Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum are being published in October, one in thr African Journal of Reproductive Health, and the second in the Nigerian Journal of Health Sciences.
- One of the papers from Morenike's research on HIV positive adolescents in Nigeria, published in Developing World Bioethics, was written up recently in the Association of Schools and Programs in Public Health newsletter: http://www.aspph.org/uc-
- Getting to Zero the Biomedical Way in Africa: Outcomes of Deliberation at the 2013 Biomedical HIV Prevention Forum in Abuja, Nigeria by Morenike Folayan et al. was recently published in BMC Proceedings, and is attached.
- Below is a list of papers from the two special issues, as well as other papers that are forthcoming from this research. Papers from the African Journal of Reproductive Health will be available online.