17th International Workshop on Pediatrics & HIV 2025

About the program

Although we have witnessed a dramatic global scale-up of antiretroviral treatment (ART) as well as efforts to prevent vertical HIV transmission in the last decade, there were 150,000 new pediatric infections in 2021 and an estimated 1.68 million children <15 years of age living with HIV. Children are substantially less likely than adults to be diagnosed, initiate treatment, and achieve durable viral suppression. Currently, only 54% are receiving ART, and treatment of pediatric HIV, particularly in infants and young children, remains complex and problematic, with continued use of suboptimal ART formulations and regimens. Furthermore, adolescents are one of the most rapidly growing populations with HIV; in 2021, there were an estimated 410,000 new HIV infections among young people aged 15- 24 years, accounting for 27% of all new HIV infections globally. HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women are 65% higher than among adolescent boys and young men of the same age, with 4,900 new infections occurring in young women weekly. HIV remains one of the leading causes of death among adolescents living in Africa and among the top 10 causes of death in adolescents globally. The uptake of HIV testing among adolescents has remained low. Programs continue to struggle to reach and retain adolescents in care, and adherence to treatment has special challenges, particularly among those with perinatal infection aging up into adolescence and young adulthood. As research to improve pediatric HIV diagnosis and care is ongoing, new scientific questions of critical importance have also emerged. In settings with mature ART programs, an increasing proportion of new pediatric infections is attributed to women acquiring HIV infection during pregnancy and breastfeeding, periods of markedly increased risk of HIV acquisition for the mother. However, the use of newer, highly effective long-acting pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs to prevent HIV acquisition has been limited in pregnant and breastfeeding women due to the limited available data on the pharmacokinetics and safety of these drug during these periods and limited availability in low resource settings where most women with HIV reside. The introduction of the new long-acting agents for treatment and prevention provides important opportunities to identify innovative new approaches and address the next generation of questions around implementation, uptake, and persistence in adolescents and pregnant and breastfeeding people. The use of newer potent ART regimens, such as dolutegravir, by women living with HIV may affect the sensitivity of rapid nucleic acid diagnostic tests, complicating infant diagnosis.

Additionally, with more than 1.3 million pregnant women globally receiving ART, a new set of questions about the long-term impact of in utero and postnatal exposures to medications for those children HIV-exposed but uninfected (CHEU) are emerging. Currently, the global population of HIV-exposed uninfected children and adolescents is estimated at 14.8 million, including over 8 million with in-utero ARV exposure. The importance of surveillance of the safety of new ARVs in pregnancy is underscored by the initial signal of an association of neural tube defects with periconception dolutegravir exposure which was shown to be erroneous after sufficient numbers of exposures had been documented.

Innovation in early infant diagnosis such as point-of-care tests has facilitated earlier identification of HIV infection during infancy, providing exciting new opportunities to study acute infection and very early treatment in neonates and promising remission strategies.

However, despite the critical importance of these topics, research in pediatric, adolescent, and maternal HIV infection is often neglected at major scientific HIV conferences. Therefore, in collaboration with leading experts in the field, we continue our highly focused international workshop on the prevention and treatment of pediatric HIV.

The overall objective of the International Workshop on Pediatrics & HIV is to stimulate research that will advance prevention and treatment strategies for infants, children, and adolescents. The workshop aims to provide a platform for presentation and discussion of the latest developments in the field, to gather experts involved in pediatric and perinatal HIV, and to promote both diversity and the next generation of research in the field The workshop has been highly effective in attracting presentation of top-level research in pediatric and maternal HIV; of 248 oral abstracts presented at the past workshops in 2013-2023, 148 (60%) have resulted in scientific publications.