Monitoring the AIDS Pandemic (MAP) Network

MAP is a collegial network of internationally recognized technical experts seeking to assess the status and trends of the global HIV/ AIDS pandemic. Created in 1996, MAP is jointly sponsored by its founding institutions:

• Family Health International, funded by the United States Agency for International Development,
• The François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights of the Harvard School of Public Health, and
• The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS (UNAIDS).

MAP's more than 120 members in 40 countries are epidemiologists, modelers, economists, and social, behavioral, public health and international development specialists, recruited through a nomination process and currently guided by an Interim Global Steering Committee. MAP hopes to make its greatest impact by providing objective, timely and high-quality analyses of the most current information on the pandemic, for the improvement of prevention, care and social interventions worldwide.

MAP workshops and membership meetings are held in conjunction with regional and international HIV/ AIDS conferences. This enables MAP to function on a small budget and to distribute results from its analyses promptly to conference participants. AIDS service organizations and regional networks of people living with HIV/ AIDS are invited to participate in MAP workshops. MAP works towards building consensus in an atmosphere of collegiality, cultural sensitivity, and mutual respect for conflicting points of view. It functions on the basis of volunteerism and personal and institutional contributions, with limited financial support from international organizations, including UNAIDS, and provides an independent perspective on issues raised by the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.

Acknowledgments

MAP would like to express its gratitude to the Marcel Mérieux Foundation for having very graciously and generously co-hosted this symposium of the MAP Network. By extending its conference and lodging facilities at Les Pensières, Veyrier du Lac, France, the Marcel Mérieux Foundation made it possible for MAP members to meet in a wonderful working environment. MAP is grateful to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS (UNAIDS) for providing the financial resources to sponsor the attendance of some of the participants and covering some of the overall local cost.

MAP wishes to express its warmest thanks to the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR) for its contribution to the production and dissemination of this report. The AmFAR support will ensure that the most current analysis of the status and trends of the HIV/ AIDS epidemics reaches those who were able to attend the XII World Conference on AIDS and, more importantly, those who were unable to do so.

MAP would also like to acknowledge the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization for their June 1998 report on the Global HIV/ AIDS Epidemic and on their production of the Epi Fact Sheets which were developed in close collaboration with colleagues from national AIDS programs from around the world. These documents served as useful resources in the preparation of this report.

This meeting included discussions on themes which were introduced through the presentation of working papers. The authors of these working papers are gratefully acknowledged here:

• The Global epidemiology of HIV/ AIDS: Bernhard Schwartländer The HIV/ AIDS Epidemic in Europe: Jean Baptiste Brunet and Françoise Hamers
• The HIV/ AIDS Epidemics in Eastern Europe: Vadim Pokrovski and Karl-Lorenz Dehne The HIV/ AIDS Epidemics in Africa: Tom Zhuwau
• The HIV/ AIDS Epidemics in Latin America and the Caribbean: Carlos Carceres and Euclides Castilho
• The HIV/ AIDS Epidemics in North America: Kevin De Cock, Donald Sutherland and Chris Archibald
• The HIV/ AIDS Epidemics in Asia and the Pacific: John Kaldor The Global Epidemiology of Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Antonio Gerbase
• The Global Patterns of HIV Transmission: Karen Stanecki DeLay and Jim Chin Global Migration and HIV/ AIDS: Michel Caraël, Alix Adrien and Jacqueline Weekers
• Transmission of HIV in the Health Care Setting: Anne Buvé The Global Map of Neglected Behaviors: Knowledge and Action Gaps: Tim Brown
• Mother-to-Infant Transmission of HIV: Richard Marlink Orphans of AIDS: A Demographic and Socioeconomic Impact of HIV/ AIDS Epidemics:
• Peter O. Way The Interaction Between HIV and Tuberculosis Control Programmes: Peter Godfrey-Faussett
• The Global Inequity in HIV Care: Eric Van Praag

Contributors to the preparation of the preliminary draft of this report, produced within 24 hours of the meeting, are thankfully acknowledged: Alix Adrien, Chris Archibald, Tim Brown, Anne Buvé, Jean-Baptiste Brunet, Carlos Caceres, Michel Caraël, Saulinus Chaplinskas, Hehe Cheng, James (Jim) Chin, Kevin De Cock, Karl-Lorenz Dehne, Alexander Goliussov, Sofia Gruskin, Françoise Hamers, John Kaldor, Yuri Kobyshcha, Alexander Kosukhin, Veena Lakhumalani, Peter Lamptey, Su-su Liao, Richard Marlink, Lalit M. Nath, Angus Nicoll, Mary O'Grady, Karen Stanecki De Lay, Bernhard Schwartländer, Daniel Tarantola, Eric van Praag, Peter O. Way, Jacqueline Weekers and Alan Whiteside.

Thanks are also extended to Johanna Van Hise Heart, Elena Markova and Carmen Buencamino for the active staff assistance they contributed to the preparation of the meeting and to the production of this report.

Publications and other work products arising from the work of the MAP Network are the sole responsibility of the Network. The contents of this report and other work products do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of MAP's founding and sponsoring institutions.