Join us as we Commemorate HIV Vaccine Awareness Day

As we prepare to commemorate HIV Vaccine Awareness Day (HVAD) on May 18, the field continues to see some modest scientific breakthroughs, while still facing extraordinary challenges.

An HIV Vaccine: Looking into the Future with Nina Russell 

On HIV Vaccine Awareness Day in 2024, the field is confronting extraordinary breakthroughs and extraordinary challenges.  

It’s considered one of the most important and most difficult scientific enterprises in the history of modern medicine—the hunt for an HIV vaccine. It has led to vast knowledge of HIV and the immune system, and to breakthrough technology (think COVID vaccines and mRNA platforms). But developing an effective HIV vaccine is still out of reach. Meanwhile, HIV incidence remains intractably high in hard-hit regions around the world, even as the field is hoping to speed up access to longer-acting PrEP. It’s a complex landscape, alongside incredibly complex science in HIV vaccine R&D.

In this episode of PxPulse, Dr. Nina Russell, Director of TB & HIV Research and Development for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, talks about where she sees promise in the science, the goals for an HIV vaccine, and why it has an essential role to play, alongside the scale up of PrEP.

Listen

Resources

Cabotegravir Long-Acting Injectable for Prevention

Frequently Asked Questions

Afrocab has developed a FAQ (below) that covers the topics of PrEP and explains how CAB-LA works, is taken, and its side effects.

Diversity, Equity and Access to HIV Research

On May 2, 2024, AVAC staffer Jessica Salzwedel gave a presentation on diversity, equity and access in HIV research at the Ending the HIV Epidemic Conference at Weill Cornell Medicine. Check out the full presentation in PDF format.

“When we think about what engagement is important for research, it involves building systems of trust.” – Jessica Salzwedel

Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit and PrEP in Black America Summit

AVAC Highlights

1,000+ community advocates, researchers, policy experts, federal public health leadership, medical and service providers attended the NMAC annual Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit in Seattle. The discussion and debate on PrEP access, especially for racial and ethnic minorities and key populations, PrEP research, care, policy and community-based programs are ones to follow.

The Years Ahead in Biomedical HIV Prevention Research

This graphic shows the updated status of large-scale prevention trials through the end of 2024.

Media Science Cafes

AVAC Capability Statement

Since 2012, AVAC has worked to strengthen the capacity of journalists to report on HIV prevention research and global health and science topics. Through its flagship Media Science Café Program, AVAC partners with health media associations in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe to connect journalists with subject matter experts—researchers, policymakers and advocates—and help build the relationships needed to foster accurate and informed reporting of HIV, COVID and emerging health and science issues.

Allocation of Non-Commercial CAB for PrEP Supply in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, 2023-2025

Malaysia, Nigeria, Peru, Zambia, and the European Medicines Agency have approved CAB for PrEP; ViiV also made submissions in Canada, Colombia, and the United Kingdom. There are now 13 regulatory approvals and 15 additional submissions that are pending.

HIV Vaccine and Antibody Efficacy Trials to Date

This infographic provides a comprehensive overview of HIV vaccine and antibody efficacy trials. Over 20 years and 12 trials, only two positive signals have been observed.

PxPulse: The Advocacy Chronicles with APHA’s Yvette Raphael 

Our debut episode of the Advocacy Chronicles features Yvette Raphael, the Executive Director of Advocacy for Prevention of HIV and AIDS (APHA) in South Africa, and a leader in the development of The Choice Manifesto, supported from start to finish by CASPR.

As co-chair of the African Women Prevention Community Accountability Board (AWPCAB), Yvette and other board members launched the manifesto in Kampala, in September 2023, calling for choice in HIV prevention options for women — such as oral and injectable cabotegravir for PrEP, the dapivirine vaginal ring and the Dual Prevention Pill — and a commitment to expanding access to them. A call heard by UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, who was on hand at the launch to endorse the manifesto.  

Yvette, who is also a 2014 AVAC Advocacy Fellow and celebrated as one of South Africa’s leading human rights activists, lays out why The Choice Manifesto matters and how advocates are leveraging it. 

Resources