In each of the last 4 international conferences over 10,000 abtracts were submitted for consideration but only a percentage selected for the conference. Over 400 submissions are chosen for 10-minute oral presentations at the various oral abstract sessions at the conference. Another 4,600 will be asked to present as either poster presentations or poster exhibitions, and another 2-3,000 may be included in the CD-ROM given to all delegates. 

All complete abstracts submissions are read anonymously by at least three international reviewers and given a score out of 10. The top scoring abstracts are then reviewed by the members of the Scientific Track Committees  and the co-chairs of the Leadership and Community Programme Committees at a Marathon Meeting to select the sucessful abstracts and group them into sessions. 

How to Apply
Before submitting your abstract, carefully read the submission guidelines and the Frequently Asked Questions on the AIDS 2010 website. 

To apply for an abstract you must first create a conference profile.

Then you have to decide which scientific track your abstract belongs to. The six Science tracks are:
Track A: Basic Science
Track B: Clinical Sciences
Track C: Epidemiology and Prevention Sciences
Track D: Social and Behavioural Sciences
Track E: Economics, Operations Research, Care and Health Systems
Track F: Policy, Law, Human Rights and Political Science

If your work is empiric research, your abstract should be broken down into 4 sections:
1) Background, 2) Methods, 3) Results, 4) Conclusions

For work that describes issues, programmes or policies, your abstract should break down into:
1) Issues, 2) Description, 3) Lessons Learned, 4) Recommendations

To read how others have written abstracts, you can search for abstracts from past conferences by keyword on the IAS website.

The CCABA Toolkit on Conference Abstracts and Presentations is available in five languages and very helpful. The conference also runs a Abstract Mentor Programme for young and less experienced abstract submitters to ask questions.

There is a useful resource from AIDS2008 called “the top 5 reasons why abstracts are not accepted”

Registration is not waived or reduced for abstract presenters; however, being accepted for an abstract will help your chances of getting a scholarship.

1 November 2009: Online abstract submission opens
10 February 2010: Abstract submission closes
20 April 2010: Late-breaker abstract submission opens
20 May 2010: Late-breaker abstract submission closes

Contact information for Abstracts: globalvillage@aids2010.org
Contact information for Abstract Mentor Programme: mentor@aids2010.org