I hope you are reading this at the Durban AIDS Conference! The meeting is a major event on the conference circuit, and is jam-packed with exciting events, talks and seminars, as well as debates about everything from behaviour change to the responsibilities of donors. I'll be particularly interested in the sessions on the revamping of primary care in South Africa and on nurse-initiated ART (NiMART). We’ve made big gains in treatment, but we need to get more people into care and earlier, and for that to happen, we need all our primary care sites to be firing effectively.

For the unfortunates who can’t be here, there’s plenty more happening. The Annual Workshop in Advanced Clinical Care (AWAAC) will take place in Durban later this year (6 and 7 October 2011), co-ordinated by the Harvard academics, with local clinical experts Yunus Moosa and Henry Sunpath leading from the SA side. It’s a hard-core conference for doctor and nurse clinicians, and theSociety has managed to source some bursaries, so watch your e-mail and Transcripts for details.

FRANCOIS VENTER

President