Asia Pacific AIDS & Co-infections Conference 2018 HIV co-morbidities

As day 3 of the APACC conference drew to a close I reflect back over the information sharing of the challenges and achievements of hard working individuals and organisations involved with HIV/HCV in the Asia Pacific region. When I think over the past 3 days as a pharmacist, I couldn’t help but think about relevance in my field and how can I employ what I have learned here into clinical practice. Whilst I recognise that Australia is very lucky with our health care system and access to HIV/HCV medications compared to other countries in the Asia Pacific region; there are still gaps where people living with HIV are falling through the cracks. With an increasing aging HIV population the likes of which has never been seen before, I feel pharmacy as a profession can help contribute as part of a holistic multidisciplinary model. Pharmacists are well placed to aid in recognition and screening of the long term complications of HIV multimorbidity such as cardiovascular disease, HTN, hyperlidaemia and diabetes associated with HIV/HCV . Further, pharmacy can aid therapy optimization via medicines reviews, quality use of medicines and medication education and counselling as well as smoking cessation support.

I am aware of some social media and mHealth interventions being implemented in Australia, but I had no idea of the enormity of the potential impact, and the range of ways in which these technologies can be used for HIV prevention, management, and improvement in quality of life for people who are HIV positive. It was mind-blowing to hear from one of the presenters that more than 1 billion people are active social media users, and how that reach can be optimised for the benefit of those at risk of or diagnosed with HIV. I found this fascinating, as like many clinicians, I have imagined social media to be helpful, but no idea how it can be harnessed, or whether there is actual evidence for its efficacy.

Day 2 was certainly jammed packed with many interesting plenary sessions, poster discussions, capacity building sessions and a lively debate. One of the first sessions of the morning centred around the management of HIV advanced disease with Dr Kumarasamy from the YRGCARE Medical Centre in Chennai highlighting current gaps in his region between policy and practice in India.