Minister of Health Dr. Diane Gashumba(L) immunises a child. She says Rwanda is ready to host International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA)
The Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA) has designated Rwanda to host the 20th edition of International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa (ICASA) to take place in 2019.
Dr Ihab Ahmed, President of SAA, announced on December 9th during the closing ceremony of ICASA 19th, in Abidjan, Ivory Cost that Rwanda won the bid.
“We assure you of the success of ICASA 2019 since we have learnt a lot here from this 19th edition,” Dr. Diane Gashumba, Rwanda Minister of Health, said while in Abidjan.
The Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA) had given an offer to all African countries wishing to host the 20th International Conference on HIV/AIDS and STIs in Africa in 2019 (ICASA 2019) to send in their application bid to the SAA Secretariat in Accra- Ghana by 30th July 2017.
To be eligible, the applicant had to fulfil 11 conditions.
Among the criteria was a strong government support: financial commitment and political will to host the conference, provide and financially support the conference venue with 5000 seats with at least 7 break-away rooms with capacity from 1500 to 150 seats.
The hosting country also had to provide financial support for the local Secretariat that will be working with the International secretariat, provide scholarship for at least 300 local participants, and must have standard hotels to accommodate up to 10,000 participants as well as conference venue(s) with standard conference facilities.
Other criteria included having good transportation network within the country, good tele-communication network with links with other African countries and international communities, presence of cohorts of scientific, leadership, civil societies, private sector, youth organisations oriented towards HIV/AIDS related activities.
In addition, the host had to also have easy access by air and by road where needed, recognisable presence of Government organ/body responsible for HIV/AIDS coordination in the country, good security network to guarantee participants’ safety, guarantee easy visa facilities and assistance to conference participants and no restriction to entry for People Living with HIV and other minority groups, political stability and with no discriminatory government policies based on gender, HIV status and religion.
