BASHH

The meeting was held at The Marriott at Brooklyn Bridge, New York. There were over 450 delegates, who were a mixture of doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, microbiologists and allied health care professionals. There were approximately 270 delegates from the UK proving this was a very popular meeting for our BASHH members. The programme included plenary talks given by speakers from the US and UK on areas relevant to both STIs and HIV. There were 28 oral presentations and 217 poster presentations covering a wide range of topics. The feedback is that the standard of the plenary and oral presentations was extremely high as they included good quality, up-to-date, information that is relevant to our clinical practice.

BASHH and the Department of Health held a joint morning symposium to present the national performance figures on the 48-hour access target and to celebrate the success in achieving this target.

The best oral presentation was "ApoE4 and recurrent genital herpes in HSV type 2 and HIV coinfected individuals. A potential prognostic indicator?" presented by Ashini Jayasuriya from Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham, UK.
The runner up for the oral presentation was "Herpes Simplex Virus-2 Infection Is Associated With Foreskin Inflammation Among HIV-Infected And Uninfected Ugandan Men" presented by Kristine Johnson from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, US.
The best poster was "Diagnostic Utility Of Rectal Microscopy In Predicting Lymphogranuloma Venereum (LGV) In Men Who Have Sex With Men (MSM): A Case Control Study" presented by Amanda Samarawickrama from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals, Brighton, UK.
The poster prize runner up was "A National Evaluation of the Reliability of HIV Partner Notification Disposition Coding by Disease Intervention Specialists in the US" presented by David Katz from University of Washington, Seattle, US.
The Maggie Godley prize was awarded to Stephen Kegg from Queen Elizabeth Hospital, London, with "Abacavir- containing therapy in a largely black African cohort - has testing for HLA-B*5701 had an impact?"

The social programme started with a Welcome Reception where Susan Blank, Assistant Commissioner New York City Department of Health, welcomed us. The Gala Dinner was held at the Steiner Studios, Brooklyn. It really felt like we were all in a movie as we were sipping our cocktails on the terrace overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

Dr Jonathan Zenilman and Dr Jeanne Marrazzo were our ASTDA hosts and they ensured that everything went smoothly and that we all had an extremely good time.