The centre held its 6th Scientific Council n July 6, 2017 in Yaounde.
Research activities from January 2017 until date at the Chantal Biya International Reference Centre for Research on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Management (CIRCB) were evaluated on July 6, 2017 at the 6th Scientific Council of the institution. President of the Scientific Council, Professor Carlo-Federico Perno, who is also Chair of Virology, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy, said work at the centre is improving with a lot of new projects in progress and publication. Without doubts, Prof. Perno said CIRCB is probably one of the highest quality HIV centre in Central Africa in terms of HIV diagnoses, viral load and CD4 counts with fantastic outcome in resistance test which is still a major problem for HIV treatment today. Prof. Perno told the press HIV remains a major problem in Africa and Cameroon in particular and it's necessary to ensure that resources placed at CIRCB to handle the pandemic are dedicated to the most important needs of HIV patients. Given that many patients over the years have lost their HIV treatment because drug resistance sets in, having a centre like CIRCB, which is able to produce quality worldwide standards in HIV resistance test that helps improve patients health is a major achievement in Cameroon, the President of the Scientific Council noted. So far, no centre in the Central Africa Region is dedicated to HIV resistance test. The centre is over 11years old and it is growing and producing many data that are relevant in the public health system as well as the health of single HIV patients. CIRCB Laboratories Coordinator, Professor Judith Torimiro said over the years, they have been looking at risk factors that could favour the transmission of HIV from mother-to-child and made contributions in improving the management of people living with HIV in terms of studying the rate of drug resistance in those who have not yet taken the drug. Research has also taken place on people living with HIV but infected with hepatitis virus. Prof. Torimiro said this is to support the treatment guidelines for HIV and hepatitis in the country. CIRCB has also made major steps in the research for a potential HIV vaccine and results that supports the centres ideas to move on to a clinical trial. CIRCB Lab Coordinator said they are still waiting for scientific approvals to continue with the work on developing an HIV vaccine which will be appropriate for an African population. In the presence of the Director of CIRCB, Professor Alexis Ndjolo, the session also evaluated the research methods used at the centre while looking at future research projects to be carried out at the centre.