KHANA jointly organises national AIDS conference in Cambodia
29 September 2008
From 10 to 12 September 2008, hundreds of policy makers, activists, people living with HIV, sex workers and men who have sex with men gathered in Phnom Penh for Cambodia’s third National AIDS Conference, jointly organised by KHANA, the Alliance’s linking organisation in Cambodia. Participants discussed Cambodia’s progress on HIV and examined challenges and solutions for the future as part of the conference theme, ‘A greater multi-sectoral response to HIV and AIDS: towards universal access in Cambodia’.
One of the key messages coming out of the conference was the importance of continuing to focus on HIV prevention. Despite a decline in HIV prevalence from 2% in 1998 to 0.9% in 2006, experts warned that unless prevention is treated as a priority issue, Cambodia could see a second wave of infections. Tony Lisle, UNAIDS’ country coordinator for Cambodia said, “The implications of HIV prevention failure are clear: unless we act now, treatment queues will get longer and longer and it will become more and more difficult to get anywhere near universal access to antiretroviral therapy.”
Tony Lisle also spoke about the importance of innovative prevention especially among key populations at higher risk: “Cambodia continues to witness serious concentrated epidemics among these populations,” he said. “We are now seeing patterns of double or triple risk behaviour; for instance, men who have sex with men and sex workers who inject drugs and who also sell sex to men and women. HIV prevention coverage for all these populations remains unacceptably low.”
H.E. Sok An, Deputy Prime Minister, presided over the opening ceremony, alongside Princess Norodom Mary Randdaridh, the chair of the National AIDS Association; Tony Lisle, UNAIDS’ country coordinator; and Erin Sato, Mission Director of USAID/Cambodia. Day two began with a plenary session on the current situation in Cambodia, followed by a session on ‘Launching and sharing HIV/AIDS tools in Cambodia’ and an afternoon of breakout sessions. The day ended with a satellite session where participants discussed their experiences and lessons learned in managing and implementing funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The final day of the conference addressed the challenges of ‘What’s next?’, beginning with a plenary on future responses and continuing with a full day of breakout sessions. The conference ended with an award ceremony honouring three local journalists who were recognised for raising public awareness on HIV.
The conference’s co-chairs Dr Oum Sopheap, executive director of KHANA – the Alliance’s linking organisation in Cambodia – and Dr Teng Kunthy, secretary general of the National AIDS Authority led 18 government agencies and non-governmental organisations in organising the conference. Affected communities helped to both plan the event and participate – as moderators, entertainment and hospitality.
The fourth national conference will take place in 2010.
