SIEM REAP, Cambodia — On June 4-8 Asia’s third HIV Surveillance Workshop was held in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, Cambodia. The theme for this year’s workshop was Challenges and Successes in Monitoring the HIV Epidemic - The Asia Experience, and brought together 65 public health professionals from 14 Asian-Pacific countries and global experts in HIV surveillance.
With support from CDC Strategic Information teams in Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and the regional WHO surveillance unit, attendees gathered to discuss the most effective ways to collect and use HIV data to better plan, implement and evaluate HIV programs across the region.
The key affected populations in Asia are primarily marginalized communities such as people who use drugs, commercial sex workers, and men-who-have-sex-with-men. Identifying the best ways of observing and understanding the burden and trends of the HIV epidemic among these populations is a complex and challenging process, but critical to HIV control, and was the focus of the workshop.
During the workshop, health workers from government, NGOs and donor agencies gathered to learn cutting-edge surveillance methods appropriate for concentrated HIV epidemics and share lessons from recent evaluations in the region of adaptive sampling, population size estimation, HIV incidence estimation and surveillance system coverage – as well as discuss other issues unique to Asia such as monitoring population migration patterns. Participants shared their challenges and successes within these topic areas, further strengthening the regional network of surveillance officers and their link to technical expertise.
Since Asia hosted its first workshop in 2007, it has evolved away from a didactic, outsider-dominated forum to a more inclusive one where regional stakeholders now make up the majority of Attendees gathered to discuss the most effective ways to collect and use HIV data to better plan, implement and evaluate HIV programs across the region. the participants, deciding on the issues that are most relevant, and driving the conversation to address challenges specific to their setting.
The workshop format also facilitated linking participants with appropriate experts for focused, ‘one-on-one’ technical assistance discussions and follow-up.
Participants indicated that such regional workshops allow them to be better equipped and informed to monitor and analyze the HIV/AIDS epidemic across the region.
Dr Keith Sabin, WHO epidemiologist and HIV Surveillance expert, stressed that for attendees the value of the workshop extended far beyond the five days.
“The real value of these workshops cannot be measured by an instrument administered during the five days, no matter what the surveillance experts will tell you,” Sabin said.
“There is no good way to measure the sense of belonging to a social or professional network, which develops through commiserating over data entry errors, difficult data analyses, and
political pressure to provide a single number when you know all the sub-epidemics in your country requires five numbers to really describe what is happening,” he added.
“Not only did participants learn there was hope for easier analysis of RDS data, but that they were not alone in their struggles, and now they know who to call when things get bleak. It’s the latter that is invaluable and immeasurable.”
The 14 countries or regions represented at the meeting were Bangladesh, Cambodia, Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan), China, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pacific
Islands, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Following the regional surveillance meetings held in China in 2007 and Vietnam in 2010, the 3rd biennial Asia Regional Surveillance workshop in Cambodia was a success in terms of providing a forum for technical sharing, assistance, and networking.
“Not only did participants learn there was hope for easier analysis of RDS data, but that they were not alone in their struggles, and now they know who to call when things get bleak. It’s the latter that is invaluable and immeasurable.”