AVAC is thrilled to see the launch last week of injectable cabotegravir for PrEP (injectable CAB) in Zambia—the first program outside of the US to do so. And earlier this week the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in South Africa also announced “the first jab” of injectable CAB administered in its FASTPrEP study. This news comes on the heels of another important gain—the announcement of a new licensing agreement that will double the supplies of the dapivirine vaginal ring (DVR) across Africa. 

All represent significant milestones that we hope will be the first of many in 2024. Leveraging these achievements so that people who need and want HIV prevention can access choice is the prevailing question on our minds at AVAC. Choice is the key: it requires robust investment in the policies, planning and programs that ensure every proven product—oral PrEP, injectable CAB and the DVR—are included in the package of HIV prevention options, along with sustained research and development of new interventions.

So what is the status of access among PrEP options as 2024 begins?

As it stands, oral PrEP is offered in 122 countries with cumulative initiations reaching more than 6 million (2012 – December 2023). (Check out the Global PrEP Tracker for details.) Trends in initiations saw great progress over the last two years, but to reach UNAIDS targets of 10 million PrEP users by 2025, initiations of oral PrEP alone will not be enough. People will need to find an option they can use for as long as they need it. PrEP coverage, seeing the most people possible using an option that works as long as they need it, regardless of product type, is the goal—with programs and products to support them.  

Injectable CAB supplies are an important factor. Late in October 2023, Injectable CAB’s developer, ViiV, forecasted a 40% increase in available doses to low- and middle-income countries, reaching 1.2 million doses through 2025. These doses are headed to implementation science (IS) studies that are evaluating how to scale up delivery and to national programs supported by PEPFAR and Global Fund, including Zambia’s. 

Zambia is now the second country in the world, after the USA, to roll out injectable CAB outside the planned and ongoing IS studies. And more countries are expected to follow in Zambia’s path, including Malawi and Zimbabwe. Check out our Country Planning Matrix that tracks this progress of injectable CAB as well DVR. 

In addition, 11 countries have approved the DVR, and 38 implementation science studies are delivering or planning to deliver injectable CAB and/or the DVR. Check out our Integrated Study Tracker that catalogues these projects. 

As these products start arriving in country, key issues must be addressed:

• increasing supplies and obtaining lower prices for both products;
• ensuring the delivery mechanisms for rolling out injectable CAB and DVR are integrated into prevention programs that are well-designed to reach those who could benefit from PrEP products;
• establishing how to deliver acceptable HIV prevention services to a wide range of populations, including adolescents, pregnant and lactating people, sex workers, LGBTQ+ communities and people who inject drugs; and
• advancing a learning agenda across programs that are delivering HIV prevention—inclusive of injectable CAB and DVR—to ensure information, lessons and insights are shared.

But above all, effective delivery must be defined by delivering choice through programs where end-users are supported to select the option that best fits their lives. AVAC’s Wawira Nyagah and Mitchell Warren outlined these issues—and the lessons from oral PrEP that need to be leveraged—in a recent commentary in Bhekisisa: Bending the curve: What a decade-long roll-out of the anti-HIV pill can teach the world. 

As 2024 begins, at AVAC we see possibility. PrEP initiation trends, country approvals for new products, program launches, and efforts at transparency and coordination could pay enormous dividends. But fulfilling this promise is not certain. It depends on overcoming systemic challenges around access and choice.

Let’s not waste 2024.

AVAC and Pangaea Zimbabwe are thrilled to announce Pangaea Zimbabwe’s new leadership of the Coalition to build Momentum, Power, Activism, Strategy & Solidarity (COMPASS) Africa, a historic milestone in the development of innovative models for power-sharing in coalition and an important step toward decolonizing global health.

Launched in 2017, COMPASS Africa is a civil society coalition with 29 organizations working in three countries as well as regionally and globally, using data-driven advocacy to improve the HIV response with high-impact campaigns. Its achievements to date have set new standards for mobilization and advocacy, improving laws and policies, increasing investment in programs, elevating the leadership of affected communities in the HIV response, and holding all stakeholders to account for targets, commitments and impact.

In December 2023, Pangaea Zimbabwe signed a new two-year, $4.9 million grant agreement with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the new secretariat of COMPASS Africa. For the first 6 years, AVAC served in this role, and worked with a coalition-wide governance committee to develop a clear transition plan for COMPASS to be led by African civil society organizations.

“Since 2017, we’ve been breaking new ground under COMPASS Africa. We’ve expanded our networks and brought together the superpowers of new and seasoned advocates who have diverse strengths and have joined together to develop and share technical expertise and winning strategies,” said Imelda Mahaka, executive director of Pangaea Zimbabwe. “This is a foundation of collaboration, knowledge-exchange and trust that can and will accelerate innovative advocacy under African leadership. We are so proud to take this step with AVAC and with support and collaboration of the entire consortium.”

COMPASS Africa supports coalitions and organizations based in Malawi, Tanzania, the United States and Zimbabwe, and COMPASS Africa members are currently leading more than two dozen active campaigns to advance HIV prevention and treatment. 

“From its founding, COMPASS Africa pursued a vision of collective power and shared decision-making that planned for a future in which an African-based organization would assume leadership as a vital step to sustaining this essential work,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC. “The communities who are most affected by HIV uniquely understand their context, challenges and opportunities—their leadership is essential to developing solutions that work. With inclusive governance structures formalized, including Pangaea Zimbabwe as the new secretariat, that leadership is in place, and we are excited that AVAC will continue to be part of the coalition in its new form.”

“As planned from the inception of COMPASS Africa, coalition members are taking their highly successful model to the next level. We are jointly investing in the long-term success of African leadership because it is absolutely essential to breaking cycles that perpetuate inequity and that stall progress in the HIV response,” said Justine MacWilliam, senior program manager and COMPASS Africa partner at AVAC. 

Along with the handover of the secretariat from AVAC to Pangaea Zimbabwe, COMPASS Africa has developed a new governance manual strengthening operating structures for the growing coalition. AVAC will continue as a COMPASS Africa sub-grantee and technical partner focused on advocacy strategy and tactics, including ensuring community priorities are influencing global-level HIV policies, funders and programs.

“This effort put a premium on creating structures to deepen and sustain transparency, accountability, effectiveness and continuing growth within the coalition. COMPASS has a track record of remarkable achievements, this new leadership structure ensures we leverage lessons learned, scale up our advocacy, strengthen each other, and set ambitious goals for impacting the HIV response,” said Dr. Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi, executive director of DARE Organization in United Republic of Tanzania and co-chair of the COMPASS Governance Working Group.

COMPASS Africa has been unparalleled in testing and succeeding with new models for transnational collaboration. The results have brought campaign after campaign that have marshalled the power of data-driven advocacy to advance community priorities and have convinced policymakers to do the right thing. With these latest innovations, COMPASS Africa is now pioneering a leadership structure that offers the field a sustainable model for decolonizing global health.

We are delighted to share our new Translation Index, a resource for journalists and advocates, to help bridge the gap between scientific research and community understanding. The Translation Index offers health journalists and advocates accurate translations of commonly used and essential scientific and medical terms in 10 African languages.

Journalists and community health workers are often at the forefront of helping people understand complicated science and health terms in their own languages. Providing information in the language it will be reported minimizes errors and helps journalists reach a wider audience. AVAC is grateful for the Sabin Vaccine Institute‘s support in the development of the Translation Index.

“Since many journalists in community radios may not be highly specialized, the translation of technical science terms into vernacular languages is essential for audience comprehension. This becomes particularly relevant during crises, as witnessed during the pandemic when different radio stations provided varying names for COVID-19 in the same language.”

—Esther Nakkazi, founder of the Health Journalists Network in Uganda

Since 2012, AVAC has collaborated with health journalist associations in East and Southern Africa through its Media Science Café Program to strengthen the capacity of journalists to report on HIV prevention research. In 2020, AVAC and partners  expanded this work to include COVID-19 science. Today, AVAC partners with health media associations in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe to bring journalists together with researchers, implementers, civil society, policy makers, regulators and policy makers to build relationships that will foster accurate reporting of HIV, COVID-19 and other science or health stories in those countries.
 
Join us, Tuesday, January 23 for a webinar, Reporting the African Science Story: Decoding scientific research to support public health in Africa where we will share highlights from our Media Science Café Program. Click here to register.

“Having a platform in Malawi for communicating science in local languages is a great innovation that will also enable more of the population to be able to follow science, research and other innovation in global and public health from a scientific perspective and participate in the discourse.”

– Dingaan Mithi, journalist and JournAIDS program manager

We hope you will visit the Translation Index and join us on the 23^rd.

By Jeanne Baron

At the ongoing International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA), the struggle to sustain an evidence- and rights-based HIV response is heating up. HIV prevention and global health equity depend on continuing to build on the gains to date, to learn from mistakes, and to invest in scaling up now-proven solutions while developing additional ones. But all these principles are increasingly threatened by political reaction and short-sighted investment. AVAC and partners released four major calls to action at ICASA to confront these urgent challenges, which are imperiling the communities most burdened by HIV and other health inequities. Each of these resources set an agenda to address critical gaps. 

Upholding Civil Society Voices in Health International Conferences: A response to the suppression and cancellation of community voices at ICASA 2023

A permitted People’s March scheduled for December 5 in Harare was cancelled due to acute safety concerns following the arrest of conference attendees at a demonstration, and other intimidating police actions against civil society and key populations at the conference. AVAC is part of coalition that issued an open letter to the conference secretariat condemning the suppression of community voices and calling for the People’s March to go forward and future guarantees that ICASA host countries commit to allowing community voices to be heard and ensuring their activities are unhindered. 

The Global HIV Prevention Roadmap for Key Populations

This roadmap outlines a strategy for the equitable expansion and delivery of HIV prevention services to key populations (KPs) globally and regionally. It introduces a critical, coordinated approach led by KPs to accelerate the implementation of existing and new HIV prevention interventions. Developed by the Global KP HIV Prevention Advisory Group (KPAG) and allied stakeholders, this roadmap represents near-term priorities for funding, U=U, PrEP targets, the advancement of rights— particularly decriminalization of key populations and more for key stakeholders and regions to achieve by mid 2025. This roadmap is a terrific complement to the recently-released Choice Manifesto, led by women advocates throughout Eastern and Southern Africa.

“This is nothing new, we’ve been saying this for years, but now it is more urgent than ever: Funding to key populations must go beyond services to support our advocacy and our activism.  Decriminalization is imperative. We are not criminals, and with a stroke of the pen decriminalizing key populations could lead to lower incidence of HIV,” said KPAG member and former AVAC Fellow, Josephine Aseme at a press conference promoting the importance of this roadmap.

Mobilizing People of Faith to Build Networks to Protect Human Rights and Overcome Homophobia

Faith leaders from across the region convened by African Services Committee, AVAC, GALZ & Inerela joined in solidarity in defense of human rights and evidence-based HIV prevention, including for vulnerable populations. Among the pledges, participating faith leaders are committing to engage in cultural and legislative initiatives related to LGBTQIA+ issues that promote love, grace, compassion, equity and justice for all. 

Call to Action for Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision: The job is not done yet

Despite impressive achievements in bringing voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) to scale, the pace of funding and the expansion of programs delivering VMMC must intensify to reach 2030 global targets for HIV prevention. Modeling studies suggest the approximately 30 million VMMC’s conducted between 2008-2020 averted 615,000 new HIV infections. By 2030 that number could be 1.6 million infections averted, if the HIV response sustains and expands VMMC. This joint report was prepared by AVAC, Azali Healthcare, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Jhpiego, the Coalition for Health Promotion and Social Development (HEPS-Uganda), Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign (TALC), the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS(UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Find a two-page summary here and the full report here. 

“VMMC offers us an exceptional opportunity to get men into the healthcare system but we have gone off track. We can’t afford to lose momentum. The job is not yet done. New funding is needed now. Integration is needed now. Sustained commitment is needed now.” – Chilufya Kasanda Hampongo, TALC Zambi

All four initiatives launched at ICASA take aim at critical gaps in the HIV response. Each provide resources that outline next steps and roles for stakeholders across the field to advance equity, and in turn help the world reach global targets to end the epidemic.  

By Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of AVAC, and Heather White, Executive Director of TogetHER for Health. This post first appeared at togetherforhealth.org.

HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer are two global health emergencies that impact millions around the world – and unfortunately, the relationship does not end there. The dire synergy between HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer can be expressed in some startling statistics: 

• Cervical cancer is on the relatively short list of “AIDS-defining illnesses”—cancers and opportunistic infections that can be life-threatening to people living with HIV. 
• Women living with HIV are up to six times more likely to develop invasive cervical cancer than their HIV-negative peers. 
• Women testing positive for infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) that causes almost all cervical cancers are twice as likely to be infected with HIV.  
• The proportion of cervical cancer cases attributable to HIV is greater than 40% among the eight countries with highest HIV prevalence in sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 5% in 127 countries with lower HIV prevalence, highlighting major disparities in the global burden.

Additionally, HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer share many barriers to effective prevention, treatment, and care. Efforts to provide services to address both diseases are beset with social stigma and misinformation. 

Due to their elevated risk of disease, women living with HIV, and those at risk of HIV are considered priority populations for cervical screening. The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) invests more in cervical cancer screening and treatment in low- and lower middle-income countries than any other funder. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria will also fund requests for cervical cancer prevention aligning with HIV prevention programs. The SUCCESS collaboration funded through Unitaid and implemented by Expertise France, Jhpiego, and the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is introducing and promoting the best available screen-and-treat tools to prevent cancer in women most at risk, especially those living with HIV.

But these lifesaving efforts are only reaching a fraction of those in need. 

While efforts to develop a preventive vaccine against HIV are underway, vaccines against HPV have proven to be safe and effective for people already living with HIV—greatly reducing their chance of developing cervical cancer. Given their enhanced likelihood of developing cervical cancer, it is critical to focus additional attention on vaccinating people living with HIV, as well as young people vulnerable to both HIV and HPV infections. Unfortunately, few targeted efforts to ensure widescale uptake of HPV vaccination in people living with HIV have been made. 

According to data from the  World Health Organization (WHO), only around 25 percent of women living in the Africa Region – the region with the highest burden of HIV/AIDS—are currently vaccinated against HPV. Current WHO guidance recommends at least two doses of HPV vaccine for people living with HIV, requiring not just effective implementation of initial vaccination but also efforts to ensure subsequent follow-up to complete the recommended regimen. A lack of disaggregated data on the proportion of people living with HIV who remain unvaccinated against HPV hampers the creation and implementation of targeted HPV vaccination strategies in populations with increased chance of acquiring HIV.

It’s well past time to build an evidence-based plan to ensure access to critical comprehensive health services for adolescent girls and young women at risk for HIV, or those living with the disease, using a lifecourse approach. Specifically, to improve coverage of HPV vaccination, we call on global bodies to take urgent steps to: 

1. Assess the current status of HPV vaccination among girls and women living with HIV. A dearth of reliable global and regional data must be addressed if we are to ensure wider uptake of HPV vaccination in populations of people living with HIV. Effective monitoring of is a critical first step toward addressing the gap in HPV vaccination coverage for people living with HIV. 

2. Create evidence-based HPV vaccination strategies for people living with HIV. Programs should take advantage of opportunities to integrate HPV vaccination alongside HIV prevention, treatment, and care services, alongside outreach and awareness activities to break down stigma and combat misinformation. 
3.  Build the evidence base supporting HPV dosing schedules for people living with HIV. Current WHO guidance has shifted to a single-dose regimen for HIV-negative populations. Clinical research can affirm the need for multi-dose regimens for people living with HIV, but may also support a shift to single-dose schedules that can ensure wider access to more individuals. 

This call to action couldn’t be more timely, as one lingering constraint to accelerating access to HPV vaccination for people living with HIV—limited vaccine supply—is expected to be all but removed in the near future. UNICEF projects that by 2024 the supply of HPV vaccines will for the first time align with the demands of the programs UNICEF services, most notably Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the most prominent implementer of HPV vaccination services in low- and lower middle-income countries. Gavi’s ambitious goal of vaccinating 86 million adolescent girls in its focus countries against HPV by 2025 presents a unique opportunity to close a vaccination gap in people living with HIV. 

Today – December 1st – is World AIDS Day. Two weeks ago on November 17th, the world marked the third annual Cervical Cancer Elimination Day of Action. The proximity of these two days of advocacy provides an opportunity to highlight another connection shared by HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer: the opportunity to invest to end these dual health threats by scaling up effective services and meeting global targets – the 95-95-95 HIV treatment goals set by UNAIDS and the 90-70-90 cervical cancer prevention goals set forth by WHO. 

UNAIDS’ Global AIDS Strategy incorporates sub-goals for women and girls vulnerable to developing cervical cancer, representing a confluence of these two remarkable global health endeavors. The Strategy calls for: 

• 90 percent of girls aged 9–14 in priority countries gaining access to HPV vaccination; 
• 90 percent of women living with HIV being provided access to integrated or linked services for HIV treatment and cervical cancer; and
• 90 percent of women, adolescent girls and young women accessing sexual and reproductive health services, including for HPV and cervical cancer, that integrate HIV prevention, testing and treatment services. 

The alignment of HIV/AIDS and cervical cancer targets reflects an evidence-based understanding that ending preventable deaths from these two diseases is best done in tandem.

We know that effective plans supported by sufficient political and financial support can achieve these goals—saving millions of lives. The time to invest to ensure that people living with HIV can live their lives without the threat of cervical cancer is now. 

As we look back on 2023, powerful cross currents confront HIV prevention and global health equity. More options than ever before could be available, but many forces threaten to undermine access to proven prevention options that exist today and the development of additional options that are still needed. Threats to PEPFAR and hate laws targeting LBGTQI+ people are just a sample.

Upstream research and development is dynamic, but robust stakeholder engagement and sustainable funding must still be secured and integrated into a people-centered research agenda. These commitments are the compass that will ultimately lead to impact in the real world. The highlights in the latest issue of PxWire provide a snapshot of key updates in Q3 of 2023 and resources to inform advocacy on these critical questions.

Read the latest issue here!