The 12th SAAIDS Conference 2025, under the theme: Unite for Change – Empower Communities and Redefine Priorities for HIV/AIDS will be held in Johannesburg 8-11 September.
Prevention Advocates’ Corner program (forthcoming)
If you’re attending, don’t miss a keynote plenary where AVAC’s Mitchell Warren will share perspectives on the future of HIV prevention, and an important satellite on Wednesday, Bridging the Gap and Identifying Opportunities: Innovative Strategies to Accelerate HIV Prevention, Treatment, and Care for Key and Vulnerable Populations in South Africa.
Avac Event
Re-Imagining Prevention: Ensuring sustainable PrEP access in an evolving funding context
The IAS 2025 conference in Kigali will go down as a critical turning point in the history of the HIV response. Every session, every meeting, every presentation played out against an existential threat: will the world find the courage and political will to end the HIV epidemic, with tremendous advances in technology underway, or will the momentum seen through 2024 collapse as evidence-based interventions fall way to ideology?
Leaders across the field are persevering to push forward the science, policies, programs and partnerships that are essential to achieve impact; and they are calling for solidarity. Advocates are leading the way, cutting a path and demanding equity, human rights and community leadership. WACI Health’s Rosemary Mburu captured this call to action at the opening session, saying “Community action is not the soft side of science — it’s what gives science its soul, its reach, and its relevance.”
See AVAC’s resources tracking the impacts and consequences of actions to dismantle foreign aid.
New research on the HIV prevention pipeline is expected to be shared alongside evidence on how the dismantling of foreign aid and the retreat from US commitments to science and global health are impacting lives and livelihoods. Every aspect of the HIV response is under attack — from basic research and clinical development to policy, programs, and global access to life-saving treatment and prevention.
Use AVAC’s Roadmap to find sessions where prevention and the larger issues of global health equity and sustainability are in the spotlight. You can download it as a sortable spreadsheet or PDF.
The future of HIV prevention clinical trials, Satellite, 18:00 – 19:30, featuring AVAC’s Grace Kumwenda presenting on community perspectives in HIV prevention clinical research
Co-Chair’s choice, Oral abstract, 15:00 – 16:00, featuring a presentation of the Phase 2 safety and pharmacokinetic study of MK-8527 as once-monthly oral PrEP
Getting to grips with prevention, Plenary, 09:00 – 10:30, featuring updates on HIV vaccine discovery medicine and evidence-based innovations to simplify and de-medicalize PrEP choice
Pregnancy and long-acting ARVs for prevention and treatment, Symposium, 13:45 – 14:45, featuring AVAC partner Chilufya Kasanda of Ascend Futures Foundation in Zambia and updates from Merck, ViiV and Gilead on their respective PrEP programs
Avac Event
World Health Assembly-A new era of HIV prevention; Accelerating access to long-acting prevention options through sustainable prevention systems and financing
This High-Level Dialogue organized by the Global HIV Prevention Coalition and co-hosted by UNAIDS in collaboration with UNFPA, WHO and UNDP, the Federal Republic of Brazil and Kingdom of the Netherlands aims to galvanize political leadership, financing, and coordinated action to drive a transformational HIV prevention push. The meeting will serve as a platform for Ministers of Health, global health partners, pharmaceutical companies, and civil society to explore opportunities to expand access to new long-acting prevention technologies as a powerful addition to existing effective options.
Join Mitchell Warren as he chairs the discussion alongside UNAIDS leadership, representatives of UN partners and global health stakeholders.
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INTEREST 2025
The annual International Conference on HIV Treatment, Pathogenesis, and Prevention Research (INTEREST) Conference is the premier scientific conference for HIV in Africa and brings together scientists involved in HIV treatment, pathogenesis, and prevention research from around the world. The conference will showcase cutting-edge knowledge in the diagnosis and treatment of HIV and the prevention of the HIV-1 infection. Additionally, it will continue to foster building a community of African physicians and scientists to facilitate the implementation of local solutions for the management of patients living with HIV-1 infection and for the prevention of HIV transmission.
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CROI 2025 Community Breakfast Meetings
The Community Breakfast Clubs are virtual webinars coordinated by the CROI Community Liaisons, the European AIDS Treatment Group, AVAC, and their global collaborators. They feature researchers and advocates discussing some of the most consequential science being presented at CROI.
Session Recordings
Breaking New Ground: The latest advances in HIV cure March 10, 2025
AVAC, the CROI Community Liaison Subcommittee and European AIDS Treatment Group hosted the first virtual Community Breakfast Meeting (CBMs) for the 2025 CROI meeting. Speaker details and recording below:
Moderator: Michael Louell, University of Washington-Seattle, Fred Hutch Center for AIDS research
Speakers
Dr. Katie Bar, University of Pennsylvania, CROI Scientific Program Committee
Dr. Marina Caskey, Rockerfeller University
Dr. Steven Deeks, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
Ms. Doreen Mora Moracha, HIV Cure Advocate- Kenya, CROI Community Educator Scholar
The End of AIDS — Near and Far? (40 Years of HIV) March 11, 2025
AVAC, the CROI Community Liaison Subcommittee and European AIDS Treatment Group hosted the second virtual Community Breakfast Clubs (CBCs) for the 2025 CROI meeting. Speaker details and recording below:
Moderator: Grace Kumwenda, AVAC
Speakers:
Dr. Chris Beyrer, Duke Global Health Institute
Chilufya Kasanda, Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign – Zambia, CROI Community Educator Scholar
Still Here! Living with HIV Long-Term March 12, 2025
AVAC, the CROI Community Liaison Subcommittee and European AIDS Treatment Group hosted the third and final virtual Community Breakfast Clubs (CBCs) for the 2025 CROI meeting. Speaker details and recording below:
Moderator: Sean Hosein, European AIDS Treatment Group – Canada
Speakers:
Kennedy Mupeli, Center for Youth of Hope – Botswana, CROI Community Educator Scholar
Dr. Peter Hunt, University of California San Francisco, CROI Scientific Program Committee
Dr. Laura Waters, The Mortimer Market Centre – London
Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2025
The 32nd annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) that took place from March 9–12 in San Francisco, CA convened researchers, advocates and others under drastically altered circumstances, as the new US Administration’s assault on global health and research devastates the HIV response. Foreign aid programs are frozen, US agencies championing science and global health are being dismantled, and US leadership around the world is receding at a critical moment.
The CROI Community Liaisons, AVAC and the European AIDS Treatment Group organized a series of daily Community Breakfast Clubs which were open to all. These live webinars featured researchers and advocates exploring some of the most consequential science and discussions from CROI.
Topics included:
Breaking New Ground: The latest advances in HIV cure
The inaugural edition of the African Workshop on HIV & Women will take place in hybrid format on 27 – 28 February 2025 in Nairobi, Kenya.
The time zone that will be used for this meeting is East Africa Time (EAT). If you need to convert the times to your timezone, this website might be of interest to you: www.WorldTimeBuddy.com.
This exciting new initiative is a regional workshop paired to the annual “International Workshop on HIV & Women”. It is an outstanding opportunity for both local and international healthcare providers, researchers, government, industry, and community representatives to discuss and further increase their knowledge on the issues related to HIV and women living in Africa.
The primary purpose of this workshop is to support changes that will provide a better quality of life for women living with HIV and reduce HIV transmissions in the region.
The format of the workshop enables attendees to learn from renowned HIV experts, discuss challenges, gaps, and opportunities for further learning and research. The debates and roundtables are an especially important vehicle to discuss issues and challenge dogma.
The workshop also provides a forum for early-career investigators to present their research and to personally meet with experts they view as mentors and inspiration for their work.
The meeting organizers hope this workshop will catalyze forming a community, where attendees continue to participate yearly and form valuable relationships and partnerships that lead to collaborative projects and positive changes.
Avac Event
PIBA Presents Reimagining the HIV Prevention Blueprint for Black Communities in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee
PrEP in Black America (PIBA) with regional Partners will host a Virtual Town Hall titled, Reimagining the HIV Prevention Blueprint for Black Communities in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
This is designed to offer a virtual platform for leaders in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas to share the narrative of PrEP within Black communities. The town hall will concentrate on three main objectives: 1. Motivating the Black public health workforce to spearhead the public health response. 2. Educating the broader Black community about the science and efficacy of PrEP. 3. Advocating for a federally funded national PrEP program.
Local Partners Include:
Community Health-PIER (MS)
FABRIC, Incorporated (MS)
Mississippi AIDS Education and Training Center (MS)
WeCare TN
Ryan White Part A Program Memphis (TN)
PIBA requests that only residents of Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas (US) attend this virtual town hall.
Avac Event
HIVR4P 2024
The 5th HIV Research for Prevention (R4P) conferenceis being held in Lima, Peru from 6 to 10 October. Held every two years, HIVR4P is the only global conference to focused exclusively on biomedical HIV prevention, including AIDS vaccines, microbicides, PrEP, treatment as prevention and other approaches.
See below for conference highlights, recaps and announcements.
