ONLINE COVERAGE OF INTERNATIONAL AIDS CONFERENCE INCLUDES DAILY WEBCASTS, PODCASTS AND INTERVIEWS
INTERNATIONAL AIDS SOCIETY AND KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION PARTNER TO OFFER DAILY, COMPREHENSIVE COVERAGE OF CONFERENCE FOR FREE
Menlo Park, CA and Geneva, Switzerland --The International AIDS Society (IAS) and the Kaiser Family Foundation will provide worldwide online access to the XVII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2008) taking place in Mexico City, Mexico, 3-8 August 2008. Kaiser -- an independent operating foundation based in Menlo Park, Calif., USA -- will be the Official Webcaster for AIDS 2008, providing daily coverage of conference developments on kaisernetwork.org, a free, online health news, information and webcasting service operated by the Foundation. Coverage will be available at www.kaisernetwork.org/aids2008.
In addition to an estimated 75 webcasts of conference sessions that will be made available online, podcasts will be available for downloading in both English and Spanish. Some sessions, including the opening and closing sessions, will be presented via live webcast, while other coverage will be tape-delayed by a few hours and available on-demand. Daily updates will also be sent via email (sign up online), and daily video highlights, in addition to interviews with newsmakers and journalists, will be posted on YouTube as well as on kaisernetwork.org. An outline of what the daily coverage will include is available online.
Journalists will be able to download broadcast-quality highlight videos of the conference. One video will be made available each day of the conference. To request access to the download site, contact Robin Sidel, rsidel@kff.org, 202.347.5270. Additionally, content-sharing tools, including an online widget, are available for organizations and individuals who want to further spread the information by carrying the coverage on their own Web sites, blogs or social networking pages.
This is the fourth time that Kaiser and IAS have come together to cover the developments and bring highlights of the International AIDS Conferences to those who can not attend in person. By providing free, online access, this unique partnership helps to connect the information and advances generated at the conference to communities in the developed and developing world and helps to raise global awareness of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the successful efforts to address it.
“We are delighted to partner with the Kaiser Family Foundation again,” said IAS Executive Director, Craig McClure. “We are committed to ensuring that those not able to attend the conference have access to its contents through online webcasts. In addition, the webcasts allow those at the conference access to a lasting record of conference proceedings. With Kaiser’s expertise, reputation and credibility, we are proud to be associated with the organization as the official webcaster of the conference.”
“This partnership allows us to offer a near virtual experience to people who otherwise would not be able to learn about the important developments in HIV/AIDS that come out of this conference,” said Drew Altman, Ph.D., Kaiser President and CEO. “Our goal is to provide the information as widely as possible – to a reporter in New York who watches a live webcast of a press conference in Mexico City and to a clinician in Africa who reads a text email update on a cell phone.”
AIDS 2008 will provide presentations of important new scientific research and opportunities for dialogue on the major challenges facing the global response to AIDS. The 2008 conference theme is Universal Action Now and the meeting will include sessions about expanding the delivery of HIV prevention and treatment to communities worldwide and facilitating the transfer of knowledge and sharing of best practices. There are more than 33 million people living with HIV worldwide.
More information about the XVII International AIDS Conference, including the latest program details, is available online.
Kaisernetwork.org provided special coverage of previous International AIDS Conferences, most recently in August, 2006. Past coverage was syndicated online by 200 partners each year and used by a number of major media outlets.
About the Kaiser Family Foundation
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation is a U.S.-based, non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on major health care issues. The Foundation is a leader in health policy and communications and an independent voice and source of facts and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community and the general public. Information on the Foundation’s HIV/AIDS policy work, journalism training programs and media partnerships to educate the public about HIV is available at www.kff.org; daily news summary reports, webcasts and other online content on developments in HIV/AIDS are available on www.kaisernetwork.org; country-level facts and data are available at www.GlobalHealthFacts.org; and resources for reporters covering HIV/AIDS are available at www.GlobalHealthReporting.org.
About the IAS
The International AIDS Society (IAS) is the world's leading independent association of HIV professionals, with more than 10,000 members from 172 countries. The IAS is a non-profit organization founded in 1988, and acts as an independent voice in the global response to AIDS on behalf of its members. The IAS is the custodian of the International AIDS Conference, the paramount gathering of all disciplines in HIV/AIDS, held every two years, and also organizes the IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention.
###
