Icona Foundation, ‘training program brings attention to HIV’

2023-09-15 14:58:20

“These are excellent projects and we hope they will all be carried forward, because this is the lifeblood for the cohort. To encourage generational change, young people must be encouraged to propose clinical research on the cohort and to do this we must somehow enthuse them, educate them on the HIV, something they know quite little about.” Antonella d’Arminio Monforte, president of the Icona Foundation, said this on the occasion of the closing – yesterday in Iseo (Brescia) – of Icona to Icona centers. Divided into 7 thematic residential training events, Icona the projects that will be financed by the Icona Foundation have been selected.

The process was created with the unconditional support of Viiv Healthcare, a pharmaceutical company specialized in the research and development of medicines for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. “With Fondazione Icona – states Cristina Zocchetti, medical director of ViiV Healthcare Italy and Holland – there is a long-term collaboration. Icona Xt is a project aimed at young professionals in the sector, of high value from a scientific point of view. I believe that the collaboration with this group absolutely needs to proceed and be supported.”

The educational program, aimed at optimizing the diagnostic-therapeutic management of the HIV patient from a clinical practice perspective, was designed with the aim of improving knowledge for the new generation of infectious disease specialists who have only recently approached HIV and who they did not have the opportunity to delve into the numerous management aspects of the infection. “In recent times – explains Cristina Mussini, member of the Icona scientific committee and Icona We must consider that not only do new diagnoses continue to appear, but that we continue to follow people living with HIV.” It is therefore “fundamental – he adds – to raise young professionals with an intent that is not only healthcare, but above all speculative research”, and the projects presented “demonstrate that we are going in the right direction”. The experience “has certainly increased the skills of young infectious disease specialists – underlines Andrea Giacomelli, medical director at the Luigi Sacco hospital in Milan – Experiences like those of Icona on daily clinical practice”.