Learn More About the Impact of Media Science Cafés in Zimbabwe

For more than a decade, AVAC and partners have been leading Media Science Cafés, a program connecting journalists, researchers and advocates to help expand and deepen accurate reporting of HIV science. The program began in Uganda, when a group of journalists were looking for ways to connect with research and better understand both the science of HIV and its impact on their communities. These Cafés began with a focus on HIV with support from the Gates Foundation and the USAID-funded Coalition to Accelerate & Support Prevention Research (CASPR) and have expanded over the years to cover research on sexual and reproductive health and other health issues and, more recently with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, to COVID-19, and are now running, in partnership with health media associations, in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

In a blog, Changing Minds: Journalists see a universe of genders, South African journalist, Mandi Smallhorne-Kraft tells the story of how one Café in Zimbabwe, as part of the 2019 program to connect journalists with transgender people, made a critical connection that participants called transformational. It’s a must read. Follow this link to read more.

Welcoming Amb. John Nkengasong to PEPFAR, and 3 Priorities

Yesterday, Dr. John Nkengasong was sworn-in as the US Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy overseeing PEPFAR, the largest funder of HIV/AIDS programming in the world. We are confident that with Ambassador Nkengasong’s ambitious leadership, vision and experience, PEPFAR and the global community can maintain the urgency and impact in ending the AIDS pandemic, continue responding to COVID, and build the sustainable health infrastructure that we so desperately need.

We also want to thank Angeli Achrekar for her steadfast commitment to end the AIDS pandemic and her terrific leadership over the past two years.

At AVAC, our eyes are on three major actions to help us get there these next few months – and urge Ambassador Nkengasong’s and PEPFAR to take immediate and bold actions to:

  1. Leverage new biomedical prevention options to re-boot primary prevention – and make sure these new options become viable choices for all people who can benefit from them. Accelerating access and introduction of injectable CAB for PrEP and ensuring political and financial support to also introduce the dapivirine vaginal ring provide an opportunity to build comprehensive, sustainable and integrated prevention programmatic platforms to deliver choice today and build for a future of even more options.

  2. Center communities in the prevention response. Generating deeper, more consistent community engagement in prevention requires restructuring community engagement. Community input must move beyond “consultation” on specific questions or challenges to a deeper, more meaningful, sustained, strategic engagement that supports the full navigation of challenges from research to rollout, in all their complexity.

  3. Imbed the AIDS response into the future of global health security and pandemic preparedness and response (PPR). The certainty of more complex and challenging health crises on the horizon demands rights-based public health approaches that focus on health systems strengthening, comprehensive integration of key health priorities including HIV, TB, malaria, sexual and reproductive health and non-communicable diseases and lay effective groundwork for addressing emerging health priorities in the future. And efforts to build a global pandemic response capacity must leverage the organizational capacities, investments, and reach of PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria.

There remain enormous challenges and opportunities ahead. We are very excited to welcome Ambassador Nkengasong back to PEPFAR and for his leadership in the global AIDS response. We look very forward to working with him toward our shared goals of ending the AIDS epidemic and ensuring global health equity.

Accelerating Access and Introduction of Injectable CAB for PrEP

Late last month, ViiV Healthcare, the maker of injectable cabotegravir (CAB) announced that it is “actively negotiating voluntary licensing terms” of CAB for PrEP to the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and is “committed to supplying” the product at a non-profit price for public programs in low-income and all sub-Saharan African countries until a generic is available. This announcement comes after months-long pressure from advocates and others, demanding that ViiV does its part to make good on the promise of injectable CAB for PrEP to advance HIV prevention and global health equity – see a number of important statements from advocates emerging from these discussions.

While this is an important step forward, and an example of advocacy at its best, this is only one piece of the puzzle that will make CAB for PrEP available to all who need and want it. Advocates have much more work ahead to ensure swift and equitable access to CAB.

And AVAC has a plan.

AVAC’s Plan for Accelerating Access and Introduction of Injectable CAB for PrEP provides a comprehensive view of all the moving parts involved in delivering this new PrEP option and identifies priorities for ensuring time is not wasted and opportunity is not squandered. The plan focuses on learning the lessons from the first ten years of delivering oral PrEP and how to move faster, more strategically, and with greater coordination to maximize the impact of injectable CAB for PrEP.

AVAC’s plan calls on ViiV, policy makers, normative agencies, donors, program implementers, researchers, civil society, advocates and communities to act on a range of key activities, which include:

  • A transparent commitment from ViiV, and a negotiated guarantee from donors, to a cost-effective and affordable price and volume of CAB for PrEP to support early launch, introduction and rollout.
  • Inclusion of injectable CAB for PrEP in WHO guidelines, which are expected ahead of AIDS 2022.
  • National programs in priority countries complete CAB for PrEP registration or secure relevant waivers.
  • Voluntary licensing from ViiV to select generic manufacturers, including technology transfer as required.
  • Donor investments in generic manufacturing capacity.
  • Market assessments and demand forecasts are updated with data from initial projects, to inform programming, manufacturing and cost.
  • Operational research and implementation science studies identify successful, scalable delivery channels; a testing algorithm that balances resistance risk with the needs of users and providers; ongoing engagement with communities and civil society; and a mechanism for independent coordination.

The plan also lays out advocacy priorities and calls on advocates to hold decision-makers accountable, for the rollout of CAB for PrEP – and on prevention generally. Is there clarity about next steps? Are there targets and milestones in place? Is there adequate funding to support strategic and accelerated rollout? How might decisions be made about who would get the product first, if it’s licensed and introduced through phased rollout?

In the days, weeks and months to come, advocates will continue to engage with ViiV, WHO, donors and other decision-making bodies focused on the future of CAB for PrEP and HIV prevention at large. Read our full statement here. AVAC hopes this plan will be the guide. As always, we will be tracking the progress, investing support, and keeping you informed.

Choice is key. Support the ring!

Choice is key. This is the theme this week – and always – in HIV prevention.

There is growing advocacy this week calling for greater political and financial support to introduce and roll out the dapivirine vaginal ring. HIV advocates from AEDC, APHA, DARE, Emthojeni, GNP+, ICWEA, PZAT, TALC, WACI Health, among others, are sounding the alarm that adding this option to existing strategies for HIV prevention will save lives and offer real choices to the people who need them most. The ring, now approved in a growing number of countries, offers women a discreet method of HIV prevention and one more option that may fit their needs best at any given time.

Chilufya Hampongo of TALC, a leading advocate for HIV prevention in Zambia, said during a WHO consultation earlier this week, “The ring empowers me. I want the chance to be offered the ring, and to find it when I look for it. Pills are not my thing. Injections are not my thing. I want the ring.”

The World Health Organization shared findings Tuesday from consultations with national ministries of health (MOHs), civil society, ring users, donors, implementing partners, and other key stakeholders in countries across Africa, which explored questions and priorities related to the introduction of the ring. The WHO reported on resounding support for the ring, a clear commitment to expanding the choices for HIV prevention options. These findings come amidst growing concern that leading funders will not support programs to procure and offer the ring.

During the WHO meeting – a summary is here – feminists and African advocates called on USAID, PEPFAR, the Global Fund and national governments to fund the ring.

Lillian Mworeko of ICWEA said, “40 years of crying and we don’t have the options we need for women facing HIV risk. How do we make the ring available to work toward ending AIDS by 2030?”

In a statement that followed the WHO consultation, a coalition of advocates applauded the WHO for its ongoing support and its 2021 recommendation of the ring as an additional prevention option for women. They call on funders, country governments and community leaders to sustain their support for the ring’s introduction and rollout in African countries where it is needed and for prompt regulatory reviews. And they call on HIV programs to integrate the ring, and collaborate with communities on the design of those programs.

In the coming days, weeks and months, funders and policy makers must hear this call. Advocates called on PEPFAR and USAID for a discussion and are also engaging decision-makers in their communities and countries.

And for more conversations like this one, check out the Choice Agenda, a new global forum devoted to advancing choice in HIV Prevention. Join the listserv, participate in the webinars, identify the priorities and help turn options into choices.

Promoting Equity in Global Health Research

As a global leader in biomedical and behavioral research, NIH is committed to supporting collaborative international research that harnesses the rich diversity of the biomedical workforce to advance timely solutions to global health challenges. Therefore, NIH has a responsibility to identify and address, to the extent possible given its mission, the challenges and barriers to equitable research, which for the purposes of this RFI is defined as research collaboration that is inclusive, elevates underrepresented voices and groups, and demonstrates fairness of opportunity and fair process. This Notice is a Request for Information (RFI) on approaches NIH can take to promote greater equity in global health research, particularly research that engages scientists in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

HVAD 2022: 25 years of advocacy and progress

Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD), and AVAC has a full line-up of resources, presentations, perspectives pieces, webinars and partners to feature. This year, we’re focused on advocacy to generate new hypotheses, fresh ideas and novel strategies to what is tested, and how. It’s time to come together, consolidate what we’ve learned and coordinate a strategy for HIV vaccine research into the future.

Read

HIV vaccines in 2022: where to from here? A new Viewpoint in the Journal of the IAS, authored by AVAC’s Mitchell Warren and Stacey Hannah with IAVI’s Kundai Chinyenze, Imperial College’s Robin Shattock, Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and APHA’s Ntando Yola discusses the way forward for HIV vaccine development, in the context of recent trials and new initiatives.

quote from JIAS article

Today, IAVI shared news of another Phase I trial using mRNA-based technology to test a new HIV vaccine candidate. Check out our updated snapshot of Phase 1 mRNA HIV Vaccine Trials that are underway.

graphic advertising AVAC's HVAD page

The lack of efficacy in recent vaccine efficacy trials has prompted researchers to look for trial designs that can more quickly ask and answer key questions, inform decisions about which vaccine candidates to advance into larger trials and, hopefully, accelerate the discovery of viable vaccine candidates. Check out AVAC’s backgrounder on experimental medicine vaccine trials (EMVTs).

Listen

AVAC’s Jeanne Baron is joined by Avenir Health’s Katharine Kripke, Caltech’s Pamela Bjorkman and IAVI’s Vincent Muturi-Kioi to explore some of the key scientific challenges an HIV vaccine will have to overcome in another installment of the Px Pulse podcast series Research Fundamentals.

graphic advertising our new podcast episode

Participate

Don’t forget to join AVAC for its three-part webinar series kicking off today chaired by long-time HIV vaccine advocate and AVAC co-founder Bill Snow and moderated by AVAC’s Director of Research Engagement Stacey Hannah:

  • Platforms & Pipelines: The miracle of mRNA: What’s possible beyond SARS-CoV-2—understanding mRNA, its history, and potential challenges for HIV vaccines.
    Wednesday May 18, 2022
    Recording and Slides: YouTube / Nina Russell’s Slides / Bart Haynes Slides
  • Prospects: What have we learned, why it matters and what it means? Understanding recent results in HIV vaccine research and implications for the future.
    Tuesday May 31, 2022
    Recording: YouTube

Thanks to the efforts of tens of thousands of volunteers, researchers and advocates, the world has learned infinitely more about the human immune system, vaccine science and HIV than was known when HIV Vaccine Awareness Day was first commemorated twenty-five years ago, in 1997. We take this moment to recognize the tremendous progress made collectively over the years and to recommit to accelerating the ethical development and equitable delivery of an HIV vaccine.

HVAD is coming up! AVAC has you covered

Wednesday, May 18 is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD), an annual call to action for advocates, researchers and policy makers—and an opportunity to take stock of the status of vaccine research, what the field has learned and what lies ahead in the global effort to develop an HIV vaccine.

Just two years ago, for HVAD 2020, AVAC highlighted the connections between COVID-19 and HIV, and outlined their implications in Five “P”s to Watch. Two years later, those insights on “Platforms, Process, Partnerships, Payers and Participatory Practices that Drive Vaccine Development” remain critical. The field has continued to build on those insights as it considers priorities for the HIV vaccine field today—and tomorrow.

Because recent results from major HIV vaccine trials have had disappointments and reframed the questions the field must ask, we all need to act with urgency to develop new and faster models for advancing HIV vaccine science that can adapt quickly to what is learned. And the field must continue to push new models for equitably delivering the fruits of that science.

So, this HVAD, the “P”s continue to evolve. AVAC has created resources and programming to inform your advocacy, kicking off with a series of conversations to reframe and re-energize the search for an HIV vaccine, the four “P”s of progress in HIV vaccine R&D: platforms and pipelines, processes and prospects. Check out our new resources below and join us for our HVAD webinar series this month.

New Resources

Webinar Series

The series will be chaired by long-time HIV vaccine advocate and AVAC co-founder Bill Snow and moderated by AVAC’s Director of Research Engagement Stacey Hannah:

  • Platforms & Pipelines
    Wednesday May 18, 2022
    The miracle of mRNA: What’s possible beyond SARS-CoV-2—understanding mRNA, its history, and potential challenges for HIV vaccines. With Bart Haynes (Duke University), Nina Russel (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and Ntando Yola (Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and Advocacy for Prevention of HIV and AIDS [APHA]).
    Recording and Slides: YouTube / Nina Russell’s Slides / Bart Haynes Slides
  • Processes
    Tuesday May 24, 2022
    The changed landscape of clinical research: the potential for experimental medicine vaccine trials in the current research environment. With Gail Broder (HVTN), Pontiano Kaleebu (MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit) and Robin Shattock (Imperial College London).
    Recording and Slides: YouTube / Robin Shattock’s Slides / Gail Broder’s Slides / Pontiano Kaleebu’s Slides
  • Prospects
    Tuesday May 31, 2022 @ 10:00am EDT
    What have we learned, why it matters and what it means? Understanding recent results in HIV vaccine research and implications for the future. Unpacking results from Uhambo and Imbokodo trials and understanding the implications for the current pipeline of products. With Galit Alter (Harvard University), William Kilembe (Zambia-Emory HIV Research Project, ZEHRP), Ethel Makila (IAVI) and Dale Hu (NIH).
    Recording: YouTube

And One More Webinar from Our Partners

Also on Wednesday, May 18th, join the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in partnership with APHA, AVAC and other partners for an additional webinar looking at progress in HIV vaccine research featuring DTHF’s Linda Gail-Bekker and AVAC’s Maureen Luba.

We hope you’ll review our new resources and take part in these HVAD 2022 webinars.

And stay tuned for more HVAD resources and perspectives to come out later in the week!

Platforms and Pipelines, Processes and Progress: The 4 P’s to Watch in HIV Vaccine R&D in 2022

On this World AIDS Vaccine Day, the field of global health faces a much-changed world. The extraordinary successes in COVID-19 vaccine development, which stemmed from the scientific knowledge and networks created by the HIV response, have advanced vaccine development by leaps, with innovation, commitment and coordination that accelerated the research and development process at unimaginable speed. The pandemic also exposed the entrenched barriers to vaccine access at a scale never seen before. Misinformation, stigma, greed, and the humbler problems of coordination and planning have hampered delivery of COVID vaccines, just as they have HIV prevention.

The response to COVID-19 makes clear, the world must do better. Scientific advances and equity must go further to deliver HIV prevention and a future HIV vaccine. However, in the past two years, results from major HIV vaccine trials have both upended what we know and reframed the questions we must ask. We need to act with urgency to develop new and faster models for advancing HIV vaccine science that can adapt quickly to what is learned. And we need to continue to push new models for equitably delivering the fruits of that science.

This HVAD, AVAC is kicking off a series of conversations to reframe and reenergize the search for an HIV vaccine.

Five P's to Watch thumbnail graphicIn 2020, AVAC saw the connections between COVID-19 and HIV, and outlined their implications in Five “P”s to Watch.

In 2022, those insights remain central to what lay ahead, and we’ve built on them as we consider the state of the HIV vaccine field today. We’re bringing together some of the most creative minds in the field—advocates, researchers, policy makers and vaccine funders – to explore four angles we’re watching as we make progress towards an HIV vaccine.

Webinars and New Resources

Platforms & pipelines for developing new approaches to HIV vaccine research.

Phase 1 mRNA HIV Vaccine Trials thumbnail of documentCOVID-19 ushered in a new “Golden Age” in research on vaccines using a previously unproven delivery platform – messenger RNA (mRNA). mRNA vaccines hit the target in COVID, but will they work in HIV? What antigen or combination of antigens should it deliver to be effective? Join this webinar or use this fact sheet to learn more about what researchers have learned, what remains to be discovered about mRNA and HIV vaccines, and about the HIV mRNA HIV vaccine studies now underway.

Webinar
Wednesday, May 18 with Bart Haynes (Duke), Nina Russel (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and Ntando Yola (DTHF).

Recording and Slides: YouTube / Nina Russell’s Slides / Bart Haynes Slides

Processes that offer innovation on the traditional phase I/II/III approach to research.

Experimental Medicine Vaccine Trials document thumbnailBiomedical research has evolved more rapidly in recent years than in any time in human history. New bioengineered platforms and products are changing the ways diseases are treated and prevented. And new global commitments to sharing information and data are finally moving the needle toward making research a truly global enterprise. In many ways, though, HIV vaccine trial design remains stuck in the 20th century.

New approaches to research such as experimental medicine vaccine trials (EMVTs) offer the prospect of answering crucial questions safely and quickly. But the commercial, legal and regulatory frameworks are not designed to move HIV vaccine research through the pipeline with greater certainty, ease and speed. And community engagement models for these next-gen research approaches are still in development. Join us to discuss the opportunities and challenges of new approaches to vaccine research, and how advocates can help maximize the potential of a 21st century HIV vaccine research agenda.

Webinar
Tuesday May 24, 2022 with Gail Broder (HVTN), Pontiano Kaleebu (MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit) and Robin Shattock (Imperial College).

Recording and Slides: YouTube / Robin Shattock’s Slides / Gail Broder’s Slides / Pontiano Kaleebu’s Slides

Prospects for HIV vaccine products in development, and for new approaches that may need more support.

Thanks to the efforts to tens of thousands of volunteers, researchers and advocates, the world has learned infinitely more about the human immune system, vaccine science and HIV than was known when HIV Vaccine Awareness Day was first commemorated twenty-five years ago, in 1997. Given the current state of HIV vaccine science, the broader HIV prevention landscape, and what’s been learned through COVID, how should HIV vaccine research move into the future? How can we best use that hard-earned knowledge to make choices about HIV vaccines in development now, and chart a course for which products on the horizon have the best chances of achieving their ultimate goal?

Webinar
Tuesday May 31, 2022 with Galit Alter (Harvard), William Kilembe (ZEHRP), Ethel Makila (IAVI) and Dale Hu (NIH).

Recording: YouTube

Dual Prevention Pill: Integrating services and expanding choices

Advocates are coming together from several fields to plan for the introduction of the Dual Prevention Pill (DPP). Currently in development, this daily pill would prevent both HIV and pregnancy. Once approved, the DPP would be an important new option in a menu of choices for contraception and HIV prevention, paving the way for additional multi-purpose prevention technologies (MPTs) in the pipeline. Advocacy to ensure these options become real choices will be essential.

In April, AVAC and FP2030 convened a consultation with family planning (FP) and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) stakeholders to understand their unique perspectives on the DPP. The consultation put a spotlight on key questions and issues that will inform planning for DPP introduction, the development and delivery of future MPTs and, hopefully, accelerate the integration of SRH and HIV prevention programs.

The consultation identified key issues including the need to:

  • Understand the market for the DPP. Demand is expected from a segment of the market of women looking for contraception and HIV prevention.
  • Program health services to allow for method switching. Individual women may change what contraception they prefer at different times in their lives.
  • Educate providers, partners and communities about the DPP in the context of HIV prevention and contraception. Overcoming stigma and community acceptance are fundamental to supporting women to use the DPP and other prevention methods.
  • Expand, integrate and demedicalize health services now, and include access to oral PrEP in particular, which will create a model for increasing access to the DPP and other MPTs.

Learn more with the resources below!

AVAC Applauds Confirmation of Dr. John Nkengasong as US Global AIDS Coordinator

AVAC applauds the US Senate in officially confirming Dr. John Nkengasong as the new US Global AIDS Coordinator leading the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest funder of HIV/AIDS programming in the world. President Biden nominated and the Senate voted to confirm Nkengasong.

“This confirmation is long overdue. COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on the HIV pandemic,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC. “We are very hopeful that with John’s leadership, vision and experience, we can maintain the urgency and impact in ending the AIDS pandemic, continue responding to COVID, and build the sustainable health infrastructure that we so desperately need.”

With consistent bipartisan support and a dynamic, data-driven approach, PEPFAR has transformed foreign aid programs, strengthened global health security, and saved more than 20 million lives since it was created by President George W. Bush in 2003. Its impact is so great, and leadership so important to US efforts to advance global health and security, that its program director holds the title of ambassador—unique among US global health employees, and its activities are coordinated by the US Department of State.

“It’s a real win for the global AIDS response that the US government chose someone to lead PEPFAR who is from the region where much of its work actually is. It shows a commitment to truly listening to and learning from the people PEPFAR is meant to serve,” said Warren.

Nkengasong is the first person of African origin nominated and confirmed for this position. He directs the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), part of the African Union and before that, served as the chief of the international laboratory branch in HIV/AIDS and TB at the US CDC, and as acting deputy director at its Center for Global Health.

“John is exceptionally well qualified to confront the enormous challenges ahead, including increasing PEPFAR’s impact in the face of COVID-19 and building a foundation for pandemic preparedness and global health equity,” Warren added. “He is a highly accomplished scientist and administrator, known and respected in both the global North and South, with a strong commitment to global health equity. AVAC fully supports John’s leadership in this critical post and looks forward to working with him toward our shared goals of ending the AIDS epidemic and ensuring global health equity.”