18th ICASA International conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa: Zimbabwe 2015
The International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) is a major international AIDS conference which takes place in Africa. Its current biennial hosting alternates between Anglophone and Francophone African countries. The 2015 ICASA will be held in Zimbabwe.
Since ICASA 1993 organized in Marrakech, this is the first time a North Africa country will be the host of the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa. At the end of 2012, 270,000 people were living with HIV/AIDS in the MENA region. Although HIV Prevalence among adult is 0.1%, one of the lowest in the world, new infection in the MENA increase by 52% from 2001 to 2012 which is the most rapid growth of HIV in the world. Prevalence among MSM is: between 1 and 5% in Lebanon, Morocco and Sudan, between 5% and 9.9% in Egypt and higher than 10% in Zimbabwe. Therefore, hosting ICASA 2015 in the region will surely help to turn the tide.
As ICASA Zimbabwe coincide with the MDG target year, the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa is offering the strategic first forum for post MGD to Leaders, Activists, Scientists and Community to take stock of the outcomes of the MDG High level Meeting challenges and to pave the way for a new innovative and efficient approach towards an Africa AIDS free generation. It is therefore expected that about 10,000 of the world’s leading scientists, policy makers, activists and civil society leaders will join the debate on the platform of ICASA2015 in November 2015.
- Increase African leadership and ownership, as well as investment in financing to support the continental health response.
- Strengthen the interaction between the public health, science and human right approaches in the control and elimination of the HIV/AIDS and associate diseases.
- Improve awareness and learning on knowledge, skills, best practices from the response to AIDS and other emergent epidemics (EBOLA, HEPATITIS, SRAS and NCD’s)
- Promote the development and scale up of evidence-based interventions for HIV/AIDS and associate diseases in the post 2015 era.
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