This year's BHIVA Annual Conference was held at ACC Liverpool, UK.

The conference was considered a great success and has received very positive feedback from delegates.

There were 630 delegates registered for the conference and this number included 30 BHIVA Scholarship winners and 47 Community Registration places.

Events

As customary, a number of social events were held at the conference. These events were well attended and enjoyed by all.

Welcome Reception

The Welcome Reception was held on Wednesday 5 April in the exhibition area at ACC Liverpool. Professor David Back (Conference Local Host) began the speeches welcoming all delegates to Liverpool and Professor Chloe Orkin (Chair of the British HIV Association) concluded, communicating the work of BHIVA both nationally and internationally. Following this, guests remained in the Exhibition Hall for some light refreshments and were provided with an opportunity to network with colleagues.

Gala Dinner

This year's Gala Dinner was held at The Venue at the Royal Liver Building, one of Liverpool's most iconic landmarks, overlooking the River Mersey and dominating one of the world's most famous waterfront skylines. This iconic symbol of Liverpool, built in 1911, and at the time, the tallest building in Europe, has the enviable status of a Grade 1 listed landmark building.

The event began with a drinks reception, which was followed by dinner. Throughout the duration of the dinner guests were entertained at tables by close-up magician Matt Windsor. After some short speeches by the conference local host Professor David Back, the Lord Mayor Councillor Roz Gladden and the Chair of BHIVA, Chloe Orkin, the evening continued with a performance by local drag artist Dixie Tucker, who entertained all with a lively selection of music from a range of genres.

Prizes and Awards

Research excellence was again reflected by the breadth and depth of oral and poster research presentations at this year's conference. Of those abstracts submitted, 206 were selected for presentation – 30 as oral presentations and 176 as poster presentations. All selected abstracts are published in HIV Medicine (2017, Volume 18 Supplement 1), and available to download here.

Click here to view the full list of this year's prize winners. Pictured below are some of the winners.

MSD Travel Bursaries in collaboration with BHIVA

MSD has provided travel scholarships to 7 UK-based consultants and non-consultant healthcare professionals (including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and non-clinical researchers) who are either training or working in the field of HIV medicine.

The value of each scholarship was capped as a contribution towards an award winner’s registration fee, travel and accommodation expenses at the recent CROI Conference in Seattle.

The winners of the award this year were as follows:

Mediscript Awards in collaboration with BHIVA

Owing to its long association with BHIVA, two prizes were awarded by Mediscript to the best oral or poster presentation for work in the field of social sciences or community-based work.

BHIVA Best Case Presentation Awards

3 awards available from presentations made during the case presentation lunchtime workshops held on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Overall the standard was extremely high and it was difficult to select one winner from each session.

• Winner - Clinico-pathological Case Presentation Session:
  Light at the end of the tunnel
  Dr Owen Seddon, University Hospital of Wales

• Winners - Low level viraemia Case Presentation Workshop
  Thirteen, lucky for some: lessons learned from managing long-term low-level viraemia
  Dr Lucy Rivett, Addenbrooke's Hospital Cambridge

  The perils of boosted Hepatitis C treatment
  Dr Nilani Uthayakumar, Mortimer Market Centre, London

• Winner - Pregnancy and Breastfeeding Case Presentation Workshop
  HIV test? No thank you
  Dr Natasha Astill, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

The Ian Williams Best Poster Presentation Award

The Margaret Johnson Best Oral Presentation Award