SAHARA Conference 2009

As part of my research year here in Africa, I attended the 5th annual SAHARA Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, from November 30 to December 3. As an added bonus, I was accepted as a speaker to present my work from medical school in New Jersey!

SAHARA stands for "Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS Research Alliance," and the organization hosts an international conference every two years. This year, the theme of the conference was "Sociocultural Responses to HIV," to emphasize that HIV/AIDS is not only a biomedical problem, but also a cultural one. In order to successfully combat the epidemic, researchers and healthcare workers need to realize and address this fact.

The conference, in short, was amazing. I'm usually bored to death by Powerpoint presentations and monotonous speakers, and consider myself a harsh judge. That said, I was awake and intrigued by every single presentation. Not only did I learn more about the HIV epidemic, but also about cultures in different parts of Africa. In between sessions I was able to chat with the other conference delegates and only wish that I could stockpile all those interesting people into the nearest coffeeshop and keep them on hand for good conversation.

One particularly great speaker was Dr. Wreford, a British woman who moved to Southern Africa and over the course of many years, became a "diviner healer" with the Xhosa people of the Eastern Cape. She recently received her doctorate in anthropology and talked with me about the role traditional healers play in the HIV epidemic. Traditional healers, in Africa and elsewhere, are the healthcare providers most deeply entrenched in local culture. If 'Western medicine' could establish good connections with them, they could play a huge role in HIV treatment. Several years ago, I had a trying experience with traditional healers in Ecuador, and it was wonderful to chew over my thoughts and ideas with someone who had experienced both sides of this issue. For anyone interested, her book is titled Working With Spirit and is available via Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Working-Spirit-Experiencing-Contemporary-Epistemologies/dp/1845454766/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1260351993&sr=1-2

My presentation (12 minutes of speaking to about 50 people and avoiding the word 'um') also went really well. For those of you who don't know about my project (and apologies to those who have heard wayy too much about it), it's called The P+sitive Story Project. Basically, the United States has done a really good job of reducing maternal transmission of HIV. At the same time, we've succesfully treated those children who were born with HIV with antiretroviral medications. This means that we have a small group of people who were born with HIV who are now surviving into adulthood. This unique cohort may have equally unique needs, and in general their sociocultural needs haven't been studied very much.

For my project, I interviewed perinatally-infected adolescents and young adults from the Robert Wood Johnson AIDS Program. I collected their personal stories about living with HIV: their challenges, fears, health strategies, questions. I compiled the stories into a 'storybook' that can be used
(1) to treat other HIV+ patients who may appreciate reading the stories of their peers;
(2) to educate the general public about HIV and reduce stigma;
(3) to evaluate the needs of this patient population;
and the project also addresses the interview process itself as a treatment tool for patients.

I was pretty nervous for my presentation, but it went over surprisingly well and I even had a line of people wait for me afterwards to ask questions. Now I know how college professors feel!

In summary? The SAHARA conference was awesome. Anyone who is interested in HIV/AIDS should definitely consider attending the 2011 conference, which will be hosted in Dakar, Senegal, and will focus on human rights issues surrounding HIV. As for me, I'm hooked and will definitely be on the lookout for conferences in the future. Now time to start saving for my own copy of Working with Spirit....