Update
PHI’s CAMI Health Hosts MPT Symposium at the STI & HIV 2025 World Congress
Presenters, including Dr. Bethany Young Holt, Executive Director of PHI’s CAMI Health, shared insights on advancing MPTs as part of the STI & HIV 2025 World Congress Conference held in Montreal, Canada.
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Focus Areas
Communicable Disease Prevention -
Issues
Reproductive & Sexual Health -
Expertise
Health Education & Promotion -
Programs
CAMI Health
Hosted by CAMI Health and The Initiative for MPTS (IMPT), the symposium, “The Time Has Come for Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (MPTs): Transforming STI/HIV Prevention,” held at the STI & HIV 2025 World Congress in Montreal on Sunday, July 27th, drew a standing-room-only audience and sparked strong engagement from the global STI/HIV prevention community.
Presenters from leading institutions around the world shared insights on advancing MPTs—multi-indication products in development, focused on the prevention of unintended pregnancy, HIV and/or other sexually transmitted infections. Dr. Bethany Young Holt (CAMI Health, Initiative for MPTs, and Public Health Institute) opened the session with an overview of the current MPT pipeline. Prof. Elizabeth Bukusi (KEMRI) and Dr. Ina Park (UCSF) highlighted key user needs and opportunities from scientific and community perspectives. Dr. Anke Hemmerling (UCSF) led an interactive session on the STI API database in development by the IMPT. Dr. Carolyn Deal (NIAID) anchored the expert panel, which underscored the growing recognition of MPTs as a transformative solution to HIV, STI, and unintended pregnancy prevention.
The symposium premiered “The Time is Now for MPTs,” a short video featuring community voices from Kenya that powerfully illustrates the real-world need for integrated prevention solutions. (Watch the video below).
More about the conference
Through the Congress theme of “Sexual Health for All”, the STI & HIV 2025 World Congress program encompassed a wide range of topics, grouped into the following tracks:
- Basic and Laboratory Sciences
- Behavioral and Social Sciences
- Clinical Sciences
- Epidemiology
- Policy & Community Engagement
- Program & Implementation Sciences
During the three decades since they were launched, the IUSTI-ISSTDR biennial joint meetings have been the premier scientific conferences that address the entire breadth of research on STIs, HIV infections and AIDS. They have included the fields of microbiology, virology, immunobiology, pathogenesis, and other basic sciences – exploring these topics through the lenses of epidemiology, prevention, as well as clinical, social and behavioral sciences. As the sexual health landscape is ever expanding, the program evolved to address contemporary as well as emerging challenges and needs. Sharing indigenous and community knowledge will also be a topic of the 2025 Congress.
A version of this write-up first appeared in a CAMI Health newsletter.
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