2009 Talks on HIV, Injecting Drug Use and Sex (THIS 2009)

September – December 2009

About T.H.I.S. 2009

THIS 2009 (Talks on HIV, Injecting Drug Use, and Sex) is a series of round table discussions (RTD) designed to consolidate, disseminate, and promote utilisation of findings from recent HIV researches and studies in the Philippines. Each RTD will focus on a particular most-at-risk population (MARP) and key programmes and services.

Programme implementers, researchers, and experts will be invited to participate in the RTDs. The first two will form the inner circle and they will be asked to provide abstracts of their studies or researches.  The experts, on the other hand, will comprise the outer circle. They will then assess the information provided by the inner circle to identify gaps and items needing further clarifications or validations.

Complimenting the RTD series is a research database containing the RTD outputs and abstracts of researches and studies. The website hosting the database will eventually be linked to regional and global databases.

Through the project, researchers, policymakers, and other key stakeholders can access available information which can help improve policy and programmatic responses.

The project is spearheaded by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), in partnership with the Philippine National AIDS Council (PNAC), the Department of Health – National Epidemiology Center (NEC), and with support from the UN Joint Team on AIDS (UNJTA).

Background

In the past five years, efforts had been done in the establishingthe national monitoring and evaluation system on AIDS in the Philippines. Among the key achievements of the efforts were the development of the National HIV Research Agenda in 2007 and the conduct of priority researches on HIV thereafter. The researches have complemented other studies particularly surveillance among most-at-risk and vulnerable populations conducted by the Department of Health (DOH), the Global Fund (GF), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the United Nations (UN).

With the updated data from the Integrated HIV Behavioral and Serologic Surveillance (IHBSS), the AIDS Registry, and the Sentinel STI Etiologic Surveillance (SSES), new findings from a number of studies conducted in 2007 and 2008, there is a need to ensure that information generated from these studies are consolidated and utilized to inform policy and programme planning on HIV, particularly to respond to findings of the mid-term assessment of the Philippine AIDS Medium Term Plan IV, completed in December 2008.

Currently, research dissemination forums in the Philippines are conducted on a per project basis. There is still no mechanism for consolidating and sharing all these data and findings to research and policy oriented audience that could then make use of information to address information gaps and/or support policy and programmatic response. To ensure consolidation, availability, dissemination, and utilization of HIV research data and other updated HIV strategic information, UNAIDS, in collaboration with Philippine National AIDS Council, the Department of Health – National Epidemiology Center, and with support from the UN Joint Team on AIDS (UNJTA), will spearhead a series of Round Table Discussions (RTD) on Philippine HIV Researches in 2009. These activities will be complemented by a website about the RTDs which will host a research database containing the submitted HIV researches and studies, and will be updated on a regular basis. This database to be hosted in PNAC will be the seed for available information on HIV and AIDS related studies in the Philippines which will then be linked to regional (e.g. Regional Data Hub) and global databases (Global Response Information Database).

Objectives

To consolidate, disseminate, and promote utilization of findings from recent HIV researches and studies in the Philippines.