Every session where our region is represented, discussed, or defended — and where to find us in Rio.
From 26 to 31 July, the XXIV International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026) convenes in Rio de Janeiro under the theme Rethink. Rebuild. Rise. It gathers at the most financially uncertain moment the HIV response has faced — funding shrinking, donor priorities shifting, and countries under pressure to integrate and transition programmes in ways that will affect the communities who depend on them most.
For the Middle East and North Africa, the stakes are not theoretical. Ours is a region where new HIV infections have risen 94% while global attention moved elsewhere, and where prevention financing is declining precisely as incidence climbs. When the global response is redesigned, MENA cannot be the adjustment variable.
That is why ITPC-MENA is going to Rio — not as spectators, but as hosts, presenters, and advocates. And it is why we built this Roadmap: a single guide to every session where the region’s realities will be on the table, and every space where you can find us.
Download the full MENA Roadmap to AIDS 2026 (PDF)
What we’re hosting
Sunday 26 July — HIV Treatment at a Crossroads: Community Power in the Age of Austerity and Algorithms. Before the conference officially opens, the ITPC network convenes its pre-conference (Room 205, 08:00–13:00, hybrid). Two sessions anchor the morning: From Evidence to Power (09:30), on how community data and lived experience expose the gap between policy commitments and reality — including the structural barriers of affordability, intellectual property, pricing and licensing; and Algorithms, Platforms, and Power (11:30), asking how communities can govern, not merely adapt to, the AI and digital systems entering the HIV response — anchored by findings from ITPC’s first-of-its-kind global community pulse on AI in HIV.
Tuesday 28 July — What About PrEP in the Era of Transition in MENA? At 11:45 in the Global Fund Advocates Network Networking Zone, ITPC-MENA and ALCS lead a guided discussion on the question our region cannot avoid: as financing transitions accelerate, what happens to prevention — and to the communities who need new tools like long-acting PrEP the most?
Tuesday 28 July — Film screening: The Life I Want / La vie que je veux. At 17:00 in the ITPC Global Networking Zone, we screen the film — with a bonus surprise for those in the room.
Wednesday 29 July — The Data That Couldn’t Be Ignored. At 14:00 in the ITPC Global Networking Zone, we present lessons from the Middle East and North Africa on the power of community-led monitoring: what happens when communities document their health systems so rigorously that the evidence can no longer be dismissed.
Thursday 30 July — Global Fund Integration and Transition. From 10:00 to 12:00 at the Lagune Barre Hotel (Room ‘Rio de Janeiro 2’), a working session on lessons learned and early evidence from the Msingi study — and what communities need to know as integration reshapes the programmes they rely on. Places are limited to 45 participants.
What we’re watching
Beyond our own sessions, the Roadmap maps the conference moments that matter most for MENA:
The lenacapavir question. Long-acting injectable PrEP dominates the AIDS 2026 programme — from national scale-up strategies (Monday) to MSF’s satellite Where’s My Lenacapavir? (Thursday), which confronts the politics of scarcity directly: a drug priced around USD 28,000 per person per year in high-income countries that can be manufactured at scale for USD 25–40, with supply agreements rationing access to a fraction of those who need it.
Community-led monitoring under pressure. Tuesday’s symposium on CLM in conservative and restrictive environments speaks directly to the conditions in which our region’s communities generate evidence — and Thursday’s ITPC Skills Lab turns that experience into practical, peer-to-peer capacity.
The financing reckoning. From the Global Fund’s path-to-2030 session to Wednesday’s To Fund or Not to Fund on sustaining prevention amid declining financing, and Friday’s The Cost of Cuts, the money question runs through the entire week. MENA’s message is consistent: sustainability must not mean the disappearance of community leadership, integration must not mean invisibility, and transition must not mean abandonment.
The digital turn. Wednesday’s WHO/IAS session on AI in HIV service delivery raises the question communities must answer on their own terms: the future of the response may be digital — but who governs the data, and for whom?
Where to find us
Throughout the week, you’ll find the ITPC delegation at the Treatment Networking Zone — Booth 112, Global Village — home of Pharma Privé: The Access Collection (grand opening Monday 27 July, 16:00). Come by. We speak English, French and Arabic.
Attending virtually? The pre-conference and several sessions are hybrid — session codes and times are in the Roadmap.
Download the full MENA Roadmap to AIDS 2026 (PDF)
Follow ITPC-MENA on LinkedIn for daily updates from Rio, in English, French and Arabic — the MENA lens on AIDS 2026, all week long.
