Version française

Community Advisory Board - CAB

In 2007, the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center (VIC) was integrated to the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), Seattle, USA, which is one of the biggest HIV vaccine networks worldwide.

In addition to HVTN collaborations, the VIC founded in June 2007 a Community Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB was created with 7 founding members from various backgrounds.

The main goals of the CAB have been set as following :

• The CAB will act as a spokesperson for the civil society, in order to open a dialogue with the scientific researchers working in the field of HIV/AIDS. Its goal is to identify the questions or misunderstandings that the population may have, in order to continuously improve the quality of information given by the researchers.
   
• The CAB will inform the community on the different strategies and developments on HIV/AIDS vaccine research and on the clinical trials taking place at the VIC.
   
• The CAB will participate in events linked with themes around HIV/AIDS.
   
• The CAB will review and advise VIC staff on all the documents meant for future trial participants, in order to guarantee clarity and morality of the information given to participants.

Here is a short description of the CAB members (in alphabetical order) :
 

BONNET Sandrine - Collaborator, Programme HIV & AIDS education, International Bureau of Education, UNESCO.

Consultant at the International Bureau of Education/UNESCO for the HIV and AIDS education program, Sandrine trained as a nurse and then studied International Relations, with a focus on economics and human rights. Her main task at IBE is to promote education regarding HIV, AIDS with a focus on issues such as discrimination towards people living with HIV, treatment, gender and sexual issues.

CAND Jean-Philippe - Coordinator of Point Fixe.

Jean-Philippe Point Fixe's coordinator, which is an association which actively communicates to the public on HIV/AIDS issues (prevention, safe-sex, existing treatments, news, and so on). As the association's coordinator, Jean-Philippe believes it is important to support the dialogue between the community, the researchers and the volunteers, healthy or HIV positive, participating in clinical trials for preventive or therapeutic vaccines. Hopefully one day, the community will be able to benefit from this research. Jean-Philippe strongly believes that this exchange will improve the information flow within the community.

RAMELET Daniel - Nurse and social worker.

Being a volunteer for the development of a vaccine against HIV is for Daniel a contribution to the affected communities. Daniel took part in two clinical trials here in Lausanne. After 3 years in Africa, Daniel has been confronted to the harsh reality of AIDS and its consequences on People's lives.

RODUIT Sabrina - Project manager for the "Groupe Sida Genève".

Sabrina is a social sciences graduate and is currently working for the "Groupe Sida Genève". Being part of the CAB is for Sabrina a chance to be connected to, and to work with a network of people from different backgrounds, to be able to give her own opinion and to dialogue with the scientific and more specifically research world.
Sabrina is the community advisory board coordinator.

WEBER Monique - Educational deputy in the Profa Foundation.

Monique works in prevention, as well as in sexual and reproductive health. She participated in the preventive measures implementations against HIV, and in educator's training. Recently, one of these training was recognized by the Swiss universities in the field of sexual and reproductive health. She is currently coordinating sexual education, family planning and the HIV and AIDS network. She is also politically active (parliament at regional level) and is the president of the association Sid’action, supporting HIV positive people and their friends.

We thank our CAB members for their voluntary commitment.

Contact: info.cab.Suisse@gmail.com