Avac Event

Understanding Anal Pleasure and Health: There’s Always More to Know

The public health response to the HIV epidemic can narrow our attention to the potential harms of anal sex. Forty-five years into the epidemic, people are still seeking accurate, reliable information about anal play that goes beyond HIV and STI prevention. They want to understand how to maximize pleasure and reduce other potential harms. Too often, harmful myths fill the gaps, leaving people to learn through trial and error and encounter preventable harms along the way.

This 90-minute webinar is designed for HIV and STI clinicians, behavioral health workers, social workers, case managers, advocates, peers, and others who provide or refer people to HIV treatment, PrEP, testing, and support services. We will share findings from PEACHES 1.0, a study focused on building comfort and confidence in discussing anal pleasure, health, and harm reduction with people of all backgrounds who engage in anal play. Participants will learn why addressing anal pleasure and health is essential in HIV service settings and explore practical ways to respond to frequently asked questions, drawing on an updated website for clients and service providers.

Speaker:

  • Dr. Bryan Kutner, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Avac Event

Advancing Access to LEN for PrEP in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda

Reflections and lessons learned from partners and Ministries of Health on projects to support locally tailored, sustainable, choice-centered rollout of injectable Lenacapavir (LEN)

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Since its launch in December 2025, LEN for PrEP has been introduced in 10 African countries. Countries put in place plans to introduce LEN quickly. To support the rapid introduction of LEN in three early adopter countries, Lvcthealth in Kenya, Pakachere Institute of Health and Development Communication (Pakachere) in Malawi, and HEPS-Uganda collaborated with Ministries of Health and US Embassies, with support from PEPFAR via AVAC, to: 

  1. Develop demand generation materials for LEN as an additional PrEP option.
  2. Conduct capacity-building and community engagement to create an enabling environment for LEN introduction.
  3. Support LEN launch and early introduction, including site activation, data collection and interpretation, and creating platforms for shared learning.

The approaches, resources, and lessons learned from LEN introduction in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda provide a blueprint for critical product introduction support, led by governments, implementing partners and civil society. These materials and lessons learned can help other countries determine how to effectively prepare for and deliver LEN and future PrEP options.

On this webinar, please join us and representatives from Ministries of Health and our partners to share their experiences with rollout and discuss how these approaches can be adapted to support LEN introduction in other countries.

Speakers:

  • Patriciah Jeckonia, Lvcthealth
  • Simon Sikwese, Pakachere
  • Kenneth Mwehonge, HEPS-Uganda
  • Representatives from the Ministries of Health in Kenya, Malawi, and Uganda

Moderator:

Avac Event

New Congress, who dis? Understanding how power has shifted after the election

How will power shift with the new Congress? The Positive Women’s Network-USA hosts a webinar that digs into how political power will shift after the election and what the results mean for people living with HIV in the US and abroad.

Panelists:

  • Drew Gibson, AIDS United
  • Martha Cameron, the US People Living with HIV Caucus and Georgetown University
  • Marnina Miller, the Positive Women’s Network-USA
  • Suraj Madoori, AVAC

Avac Event

Lower-Cost HIV Tests: Advocacy for better diagnostic deals

Opportunities to expand access to high quality testing services while freeing up funding for HIV prevention and treatment.

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Engagement with diagnostic procurers for the purchase of lower cost diagnostic products is critical given reductions in funding for health programs. International Planned Parenthood Federation’s recent survey on HIV stock-outs in 40 countries showed HIV rapid tests to be the most critically affected product. Global Fund is open to support countries’ adoption of low-cost, WHO pre-qualified HIV tests—both rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and HIV self-testing (HIVST). But advocates have a role to play, ensuring both national-level and Global Fund purchase of lower-cost HIV testing products to better sustain testing services and free up funding. In this webinar, AVAC, CHAI, and the WHO unpacked some of the basics on HIV testing, pricing and procurement, and began a discussion about potential advocacy for change.

Objectives:

  • Equip advocates with knowledge of lower-cost HIV RDTs and HIVST opportunities for cost-savings and expanded accesses to HIV products and services, and
  • Outline country-level decision points, cost-saving opportunities, and advocacy actions. for the uptake of lower-cost diagnostics.

Agenda:

Session / Slide PresentationsFacilitator
Framing the state of HIV testing services and future needsWHO, Celine Lastrucci
Rapid Diagnostic Tests and HIV Self-Testing —products and costsCHAI, Megan Ginivan
Advocacy for product adoption—national level Afrocab, Bahati Haule
Advocacy for product adoption—Global FundGlobal Fund, Marian Honu
Discussion and next stepsAVAC

Avac Event

Investing in Biomedical Innovation for Health and Economic Growth

This Financial Times webinar, hosted in partnership with ViiV Healthcare, brought together policymakers, funders, researchers, philanthropies and industry leaders to explore how to keep medical innovation moving forward. The conversation examined how to create the right conditions for future breakthroughs – and deliver clear benefits for patients, health systems, economies and society. Speakers discussed how to better recognise the economic, health and social impact of new medicines, how partnerships can help share risk and accelerate progress, and how new funding models could support the next generation of drug development.

Speakers:

  • Gloria Ghéquière, Deputy Head of Cabinet of the Minister of Health, Federal Government of Belgium
  • Dr Nicole Kleinstreuer, Deputy Director for Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPS), National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  • Mitchell Warren, Executive Director, AVAC

Moderator:

  • Michael Peel, Science Editor, Financial Times 
Read the Summary

Avac Event

Aftershocks Roundtable: How do we rebuild our HIV and public health infrastructure?

On October 28, TCA and IAPAC’s Dr. José M. Zuniga – author of the new book “Aftershocks: Trump 2.0, Public Health, and Our Better Angels” – hosted a dynamic panel to discuss the profound disruption of public health systems over the past almost two years and the urgent need for a coordinated movement to defend and ultimately rebuild them.

“Public health has always been about more than controlling disease,” says Dr. Zuniga. “It is a collective promise that where people live, who they are, whom they love, or how much they earn will not determine whether they can live healthy and dignified lives. That promise is being tested. Our response must be organized, courageous, and ambitious enough not merely to recover what has been lost, but to build what should have existed all along.”

Speakers:

  • Dr. José M. Zuniga, Fast-Track Health, “Aftershocks” author
  • Definate Nhamo, Pangaea Zimbabwe
  • Harold Phillips, NMAC
  • Dr. Shannon Hader, American University School of International Service
  • Tian Johnson, African Alliance

Recording / Transcript

Avac Event

Reaching Key Populations with Long-Acting PrEP: The launch of the PrEP Power Demand Generation Toolkit

The need for PrEP amongst key populations (KPs) is high yet KPs remain underserved in many PrEP programs. To help address this need, Global Black Gay Men Connect, Access Bridge, and AVAC, alongside local partners in Eswatini, Kenya, and Zambia, convened Human Centered Design (HCD) Lite workshops to gather insights to develop KP-focused messaging on long-acting PrEP.  The resulting findings were synthesized into a demand generation toolkit, consisting of summary insights, guidance for developing materials, and sample materials. The toolkit forms a valuable resource for KP-focused organizations and HIV prevention implementers to adapt to their contexts and support their efforts to engage KP communities on long-acting PrEP.

Access the toolkit at prepwatch.org/preppowertoolkit.

In this webinar, we discussed the following:

  • The HCD Lite process, and how we rapidly gathered and translated insights into demand generation materials
  • Key insights on how to reach KPs with long-acting PrEP 
  • How to use and adapt the toolkit for your local context 

Avac Event

Combo bNAbs for HIV Prevention – Latest Developments

Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) remain at the center of research toward an HIV vaccine and immune-based HIV prevention. In particular, researchers are advancing the concept of “combo AMP” – passive delivery of a combination of bNAbs targeting multiple sites on the viral envelope – achieving broader and stronger protection than with a single bNAb, as in the original AMP trial.  

At AIDS 2026, the CAPRISA team from Durban, South Africa announced results from the CAP 012c Phase 2 trial examining a combination of two bNAbs, which unfortunately showed no statistically significant difference in HIV incidence rates between the combo bNAb and placebo arms.  

The HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) is currently designing a three bNAb combination study. Additional bNAb research is tracked as part of AVAC’s People’s Research Agenda. 

In this webinar, we shared the latest updates on the bNAb pipeline and discussed what the future holds. 

Read the Summary

Avac Event

Plain Language as Scientific Accountability: How to Communicate Science Beyond Academic Audiences

This joint UW/Fred Hutch—Penn CFAR session brings the two CFARs together in conversation around how we communicate science beyond academic audiences. This session will present examples of technical language from HIV cure, prevention, and treatment research and ask what happens when the people most affected by the science cannot easily understand what researchers are saying. Then participants will roll up their sleeves and work together to make that language clearer without losing the science.

Avac Event

Evolving Oral PrEP Guidance for Cis Women: What do we know, and what will it take?

Scientific consensus is evolving, but PrEP clinical equity remains unachieved. Recent data has challenged the “conventional wisdom” surrounding vaginal PrEP tissue concentrations, proving oral PrEP (TDF/FTC, TAF/FTC) is significantly more forgiving than historic messaging for cis women suggested. This has implications for what we understand as “time to protection” as well as “on-demand” PrEP, and may impact trans and non-binary people as well.

What will it take to update the discordant guidelines for women? Can better, more accurate alignment advance equity for cis women, trans folks and non-binary people?

Speakers:

  • Dr. Heather-Marie Anne Schmidt, UNAIDS
  • Simon Collins, HIV i-Base
  • Dr. Jenell Stewart, University of Minnesota
  • Dr. Raphael Landovitz, University of California Los Angeles

Recording / Transcript / Slides