Bending the Curve: What a decade-long roll-out of the anti-HIV pill can teach the world
The world cannot afford to squander another decade through slow, fragmented roll-out of life-saving HIV prevention. With longer-lasting options now becoming available, along with daily oral PrEP, condoms, voluntary medical male circumcision and HIV treatment, the world could finally bend the curve of HIV — but only if investment and planning for delivery are as evidence-based, person-centred and innovative as research and development in new products.
November 28, 2023 – Bhekisisa
Slash the Price by Three-Quarters — Government on Anti-HIV Jab
ViiV has already shipped PEPFAR-sponsored supplies to Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, which will arrive in late November, according to Mitchell Warren of the Coalition to Accelerate Access to Long-Acting PrEP. ViiV has confirmed the shipment to Bhekisisa, but not the donor or countries. Warren, however, says the US government has confirmed to the Coalition that the stock was bought by Pepfar. The Coalition is a group convened by Pepfar, the Global Fund, UNAIDS, Unitaid and the World Health Organisation; AVAC, the New York-based advocacy group which Warren heads up, is the secretariat.
November 16, 2023 — Bhekisisa
LISTEN: The Anti-HIV Jab Is Coming to SA. Find Out When and How
AVAC’s Executive Director sits with Bhekisisa to discuss a path forward for injectable cabotegravir for PrEP and path(s) forward that centers choice.
November 10, 2023 — Bhekisisa
Progress Against HIV and AIDS Is Fragile
Ahead of World AIDS Day, AVAC’s Executive Director Mitchell Warren sits down with Tim Murphy of POZ Magazine for a comprehensive look at where in the fight against HIV/AIDS and what advocacy and scientific breakthroughs are needed in ending the epidemic.
November 1, 2023 — POZ Magazine
How might we motivate uptake of the Dual Prevention Pill? Findings from human-centered design research with potential end users, male partners, and healthcare providers
“AVAC’s Wawira Nyagah and Kate Segal co-authored a comprehensive manuscript on a demand generation approach for the DPP (Dual Prevention Pill) including findings from research with potential users, male partners, and healthcare providers.”
November 1, 2023 — Frontiers in Reproductive Health
Over a Million SAs Have Used the HIV Prevention Pill
“For the past 18 months, donors such as the US government’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, Pepfar, and the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria, have been negotiating with CAB-LA’s manufacturer, ViiV Healthcare, for a non-profit price. Although an official price hasn’t yet been announced, a cost of $240 (about R4 500) for a year’s supply (six injections) has been mentioned by various organisations, a price which Mitchell Warren of the New York-based advocacy organisation, AVAC, says is likely accurate. He says as demand increases the price could very well drop to below $100, but that is still much more than the cost of the pill. AVAC hosts a coalition that looks at how to make long-acting PrEP available as fast as possible.”
October 25, 2023 — Behekisisa
How ‘Unauthorized Status’ Is Threatening US Global HIV Initiative
“It puts PEPFAR into the annual appropriations process and potentially opens it up every year to amendments on the right and on the left. There’s no natural constituency for foreign aid in the United States, like no one’s getting primaried if they don’t support foreign aid, despite the fact that PEPFAR is a very popular, very successful program. And so it politicizes it and risks the broad bipartisanship that’s protected PEPFAR for 20 years.” – Annette Gaudino
October 22, 2023 — The Hill
Anti-Abortion Arguments Spill Into Popular Bush-era Program
“This is not about HIV prevention or treatment or care. This is not about global health. This is about a political agenda that has said, ‘We want to use anything we can to reinforce an anti-abortion agenda.”- Mitchell Warren
October 11, 2023 — Medill News Service
‘The Start of the National AIDS Movement’: ACT UP’s Defining Moment in Queer Protest History
“The AIDS epidemic is not over until it’s over for everyone. We cannot see an end to the epidemic unless we have universal access to top-of-the-line, revolutionary treatments and also prevention methods.” – Jason Rosenberg
October 11, 2023 — The Guardian
The Architecture for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, & Response (PPPR): Views from Civil Society Leaders on the UN High Level Meetings (Guest Essay)
“Health continues to dominate political agendas globally, even as urgency in the response to COVID-19, seems to be ebbing away. Last week WHO indicated how few countries are sharing information on reporting deaths from the disease and on sequencing, for example.”
September 13, 2023 — Geneva Health Files
US Republicans ‘Hold Hostage’ HIV Programme Credited With Saving 25 Million Lives
Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, an international non-governmental organisation working on HIV prevention, said that the attack on the initiative is “unconscionable and reflects politics gone amok in the United States. To see it being held hostage by just a few members of Congress, who are providing disinformation and unfounded accusations to really hold a programme hostage to a political agenda, is unconscionable.”
September 12, 2023 — The Telegraph
Will the Wildly Successful PEPFAR Global AIDS Program Get Held Up in Congress Due to Abortion Politics?
“There’s no project more supported on a bipartisan basis, or with such incredible impact, and the fact that it’s being held political hostage is absolutely remarkable.” said Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of AVAC, a global HIV/AIDS prevention advocacy group.
August 11, 2023 — TheBody
Jeanne Marrazzo Chosen to Succeed Fauci as NIAID Director
“I can’t think of a better pick to be Fauci’s successor,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC). “One of Fauci’s great successes is communicating complex science to a range of audiences. I think we’ve all wondered who could fill those shoes and more importantly, who could fill the microphone explaining complex science to policymakers and to politicians and to communities and to the media. That’s Jeanne Marrazzo.”
August 2, 2023 — MedpageToday
Why Some of the Most Capable Nations Won’t Hit UNAIDS Targets
Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC for global health advocacy, access, and equity, said that many of the low- and middle-income countries that are on track to achieve targets are able to do so because of support from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
July 31, 2023 — Medscape
Shaping and Coordinating the Implementation Science Agenda for Injectable Cabotegravir for PrEP: The Role of the Biomedical Prevention Implementation Collaborative (BioPIC)
Data from two randomized controlled trials (RCTs) showed that injectable cabotegravir (CAB) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) was efficacious in reducing HIV acquisition. The US Food and Drug Administration approved CAB for PrEP in December 2021; Australia in August 2022; Zimbabwe in October 2022; South Africa in November 2022; Malawi in March 2023; and regulatory approvals are being sought in additional countries.
July 13, 2023 — Journal of the International AIDS Society
A New HIV Drug Is Coming to Africa – It Could Be Game-Changing
Long-lasting injections to protect people from HIV are set to be rolled out across Africa, potentially revolutionising the continent’s fight against the disease. Treatment for HIV has improved enormously over the last 30 years, with retroviral drugs able to suppress the virus in those who carry it and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) widely available in tablet form to prevent infection.
July 5, 2023 — Telegraph
Put Family Planning, PrEP for HIV Prevention Under One Roof
Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, an important day to acknowledge. Afterall, an HIV vaccine would be the most efficient, inexpensive way to control and possibly eradicate this stubborn, decades-old virus.
May 27, 2023 — New Vision
The Anti-HIV Injection Will Be Made in SA: Here Are 4 Benefits of the Deal That Made It Happen
Although a start date hasn’t been announced, the South African arm of the Indian drug company Cipla has confirmed that a generic version of the two-monthly HIV prevention injection, CAB-LA (short for long-acting cabotegravir), will be made at its plants in Benoni or Durban. Cabotegravir is an antiretroviral drug that blocks HIV from entering someone’s cells.
May 9, 2023 — Bhekisisa
US Officials Want to End the HIV Epidemic by 2030. Many Stakeholders Think They Won’t.
In 2018, Mike Ferraro was living on the street and sharing needles with other people who injected drugs when he found out he was HIV-positive. “I thought it was a death sentence, where you have sores and you deteriorate,” he said. Ferraro learned of his HIV status through a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine initiative called IDEA Exchange, which sent doctors and medical students to the corner where he panhandled. He got tested and enrolled in the program, which also provides clean syringes, overdose reversal medications, and HIV prevention and treatment drugs.
April 24, 2023 — KFF Health News
Uganda’s “Anti-Homosexuality” Bill Already Affecting Care
Activists and health-care providers are already seeing the chilling effects of Uganda’s proposals to further criminalise homosexuality.
April 21, 2023 — The Lancet
Payer Groups to Congress: We’ll Cover Preventive Care, For Now
Payer trade groups have written Democrats chairing five key US House and Senate committees stating their Affordable Care Act plans will most likely continue to offer many preventive health services at no cost to members while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the challenge known as Braidwood vs. Becerra. Advocates aren’t sure they mean it or for how long. The plaintiffs in Braidwood, a federal case in Texas, are contesting the right of the government to require payers to cover the full cost of care meant to prevent certain illnesses or conditions.
April 21, 2023 — Health Payer Specialist
PrEP to Prevent HIV Moves Apace
The best way to treat the worldwide epidemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection is to prevent people from being infected in the first place, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) appears to be a successful way to accomplish prevention among people who acquire the infection through sexual activity.
April 18, 2023 — Breaking Med
PEPFAR Is A True Bipartisan Success With An Uncertain Future
The words “gridlock in Congress” are used so often that it’s hard to believe there are still issues that are truly bipartisan. However, after many decades, there is one issue that continues to receive support from both sides of the aisle. The effort to end HIV and AIDS has been not only a uniting cause in Congress, but it has also, through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), resulted in one of the best examples of US global health leadership in history.
April 14, 2023 — Health Affairs
Uganda Passes Severe Anti-LGBTQ Law—Again
The Ugandan parliament recently passed a draconian anti-LGBTQ law. The Anti-Homosexuality Act, as it is formally known, is intended “to protect the traditional family,” as its introduction states. However, it needs to be signed by the country’s president, Yoweri Museveni―who has previously campaigned against homosexuality―to become law. The bill follows a similar attempt at outlawing the LGBTQI community in 2014. That law was signed by Museveni, who has been president since 1986.
April 4, 2023 — TheBodyPro
Can PEPFAR End Global AIDS in the Coming Decade?
Allan Maleche, the head of the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV/AIDS (KELIN), remembers what his country was like before the introduction of lifesaving HIV medications in the early 2000s. “This sounds like a sob story, but people were on their deathbeds, writing their last will and testament,” he says. “The moment ARVs [antiretroviral medications] came on board, we saw a lot of people bounce back and become vibrant, helping others to not become HIV positive and being active citizens of the world.”
March 31, 2023 — TheBody
AVAC Condemnation of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2023
This week, Ugandan Parliamant took steps toward implementing an anti-gay policy change that would further criminalize and endanger the lives of LGBTQIA+ people. AVAC condemns the proposed legislation and stands in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ community in Uganda who face threats to their lives, draconian prison terms, and even the prospect of death sentences if this legislation goes forward.
March 24, 2023 — AVAC
‘Revolutionary’ HIV Prevention Jab Set to Expand Choices for Consumers
Researchers quickly recognized the potential of the long-term HIV prevention injectable. One of the key studies on the efficacy of the drug — which is a form of PrEP, used to prevent HIV infections — finished months ahead of schedule, as initial results showed the superiority of the injectable to a daily oral version of PrEP. CAB-LA only requires people to receive injections eight weeks apart after an introductory period.
March 1, 2023 — Devex
Take as Needed: Preventing HIV might one day be as easy as using this suppository
A small study conducted among 23 HIV-negative men and women in the United States has found that a quick-dissolving rectal suppository – no bigger than a fingernail – that contains two antiretroviral drugs is safe, researchers announced at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI).
February 22, 2023 — Spotlight
The Next Phase of the Global HIV/AIDs Fight
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — the biggest effort by one nation to address a particular disease — is hitting a milestone anniversary. But advocates worry the US may take its foot off the gas. Why it matters: 20 years after then-President George W. Bush launched PEPFAR in his 2003 State of the Union address, the $7 billion-a-year program is up for reauthorization in Congress.
February 21, 2023 — Axios
Africa CDC Criticizes Exclusion from Pandemic Fund
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said its inability to serve as an “implementing entity” for the new Pandemic Fund cripples its ability to protect the health of African citizens. The Pandemic Fund, which is hosted by the World Bank, and is led from a technical standpoint by the World Health Organization, is a pool of public and private financing aimed at helping low- and middle-income countries in pandemic preparedness and response.
February 15, 2023 — Devex
Still Much To Do
AVAC looks ahead with Anthony Fauci, MD, to what’s next in the fight against HIV and COVID-19. Prior to his departure as head of the national institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Anthony Fauci, MD, spoke with Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, on November 28, 2022, in advance of World AIDS Day. In the interview, they discuss what has been accomplished so far in the fight against HIV and COVID-19 and what’s ahead for Fauci and pandemic preparedness. Below is an edited excerpt.
February 13, 2023 — POZ Magazine
Decriminalization of Sex Work Can Help Prevent HIV
South Africa has a deep history of pain, rooted in gross human rights violations under the apartheid regime. The preamble to the South African Constitution of 1996 identifies human rights, equality and freedom as founding democratic values of South African society. As a young woman, legal scholar, and sex worker advocate, it is heart wrenching to see that even beyond 1996, we still have laws in place which allow for discrimination, stigmatisation, and violence against certain members of society.
January 27, 2023 — Health-e News
Fauci in Context: A BreakingMED Special Feature
As the fabled ball dropped on Times Square at the stroke of midnight Dec. 31, 2022, it signaled not just the birth of a new year, but also the end of an era—the Fauci era. On Nov. 2, 1984, Anthony Stephen Fauci, MD, was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). On Dec. 31, after 13,939 days in office, he stepped down. Those 38 years, one month, and 30 days made him the longest-serving director of any of the 27 institutes and centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
January 25, 2023 — Breaking Med
The Only Late-Stage HIV Vaccine Study (Mosaico) Just Tanked. What’s Next?
It was the big, sad HIV news of mid-January: Janssen Pharmaceuticals’ Mosaico study of an experimental HIV vaccine―which included nearly 4,000 gay men and transgender people in Latin America, the US, and Europe―was coming to a halt because the vaccine was a dud. Though exact numbers have yet to be released, we will likely soon learn that this was determined by the fact that HIV transmission rates in the study’s two arms—vaccine and placebo, with people having the option of being on PrEP in both arms—were basically the same; meaning that the vaccine was showing no efficacy.
January 25, 2023 — TheBody
Closure of HIV Vaccine Study Shows How Far We Have To Go
Janssen pharmaceuticals, the research branch of Johnson & Johnson, said yesterday that they were “disappointed” that the latest HIV candidate vaccine, and the only one left in a phase III efficacy trial, had failed to reach pre-specified standards of efficacy. For this reason, they had terminated the Mosaico Study, which gave the vaccine or a placebo to 3,900 cis and trans gay and bisexual men and trans women in the Americas and Europe.
January 19, 2023 — aidsmap
HIV Vaccine Hopes Dashed
It’s back to the drawing board for a potential HIV vaccine, as Janssen Pharmaceuticals recently announced a Phase 3 investigational study into a potential regimen was not effective in preventing HIV infection. The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced in January that their independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board uncovered no safety issues with their Mosaico study, but also found it didn’t prevent HIV effectively, leading them to discontinue the trial.
January 19, 2023 — Yahoo News
The Only HIV Vaccine in Advanced Trials Has Failed. What Now?
The only vaccine against HIV still being tested in late-stage clinical trials has proved ineffective, its manufacturer announced on Wednesday, another disappointment in a field long beset by failure. Dozens of HIV vaccine candidates have been tested and discarded over the past few decades. The latest defeat sets progress toward a vaccine back by three to five years, experts said. Still, other options in early-stage trials may yet turn out to provide a powerful bulwark against HIV.
January 18, 2023 — New York Times
Another HIV Vaccine Fails in Large Trial
Another large trial has been discontinued after Johnson & Johnson’s experimental HIV vaccine, which uses the same technology as the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, was shown to be safe but did not provide protection against HIV acquisition. Today’s announcement by the National Institutes of Health adds to a long string of disappointments in HIV vaccine research.
January 18, 2023 — POZ Magazine
HIV Vaccine Being Developed by Johnson & Johnson Fails Clinical Trial
Yet another experimental HIV vaccine has failed. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reported Wednesday that a Phase 3 clinical trial of a vaccine was stopped because the vaccine was ineffective at preventing HIV infection. The vaccine was being developed by Janssen, the vaccine division of Johnson & Johnson.
January 18, 2023 — STAT
J&J Ends Large HIV Vaccine Trial in Latest Setback for Field
Johnson & Johnson halted a big trial of its experimental HIV vaccine in the Americas and Europe, a disappointment for hopes of battling the global infectious disease after a similar form of the shot failed earlier in a study in Africa. The Mosaico study ended early after an independent data and safety monitoring board found it didn’t significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection, the company said Wednesday in a statement.
January 18, 2023 — Bloomberg
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