Avac Event

Before the Pen Hits the Pad: PrEP Education for Health Care Providers

The US CDC estimates that nearly 500,000 women in the US could benefit from using PrEP. But women’s uptake of PrEP is small compared to men’s because most women who might want it have never even heard of it. One of the most effective ways to raise most women’s awareness of PrEP is to get their health care providers (usually family planning clinics) talking to them about PrEP.

In this webinar we explored the education that needs to be done among those health care providers to make this happen and what is being done to be prioritize it, especially by federal agencies, state and local health departments.

Avac Event

Hangouts with HIVE — PrEP Awareness Campaigns: Including Women

Surveys and focus groups conducted with women demonstrate few women know about PrEP as an effective HIV prevention method and women are interested in learning more about PrEP as a potential option for themselves.

Join HIVE for a 1-hour discussion via Google Hangouts.

Avac Event

PrEP Access & Engagement Training

Participants learned about:

  • Health care access
  • PrEP guidelines
  • Who is falling through the gaps?
  • Bias/stigma from provider and/or community
  • Engaging in a conversation about PrEP
  • Assessing risk
  • Community mobilization around PrEP and prevention
  • Shifting community norms around PrEP and queer sexuality

For more information, contact josephinea@BlackAIDS.org. The flyer is available for download below.

Avac Event

PrEP Access & Engagement Training

The PrEP Access & Engagement Training was hosted by BTAN Bay Area and the Black AIDS Institute. Health care access, PrEP guidelines, how to engage in a conversation about PrEP, community mobilizing around PrEP and prevention and much more were discussed.

Avac Event

Long-Acting Injectables Antiretrovirals for Treatment and Prevention

Heard about a “tail” for long-acting injectables and want to know more? Interested in the timeline for when people with HIV might have injectable drug options for treatment? Wondering how people felt about getting an injection for PrEP? David Margolis (ViiV Healthcare) and Marty Markowitz (Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center) spoke about long-acting injectable antiretrovirals for treatment and prevention.

Click for the slides and an audio recording. A link to the Flash animation is below.

At CROI, Margolis presented findings from the LATTE 2 trial, which tested a pair of long-acting injectables—cabotegravir (from ViiV Healthcare) and rilpivarine (from Janssen)—for HIV maintenance therapy, and Markowitz presented findings from the ÉCLAIR paste 2A study of cabotegravir in HIV-uninfected men.

And this webinar is part of our post-2016 CROI webinar series. Click for more information.

Avac Event

Black Treatment Advocates Network National Meeting

The goal of the BTAN National Meeting was to engage BTAN members, co-chairs, and prospective members in capacity-building and best practice sharing workshops. In addtion to learning about the Seek, Test, Treat, and Retain model, the conference aimed to facilitate dialogue about the socio-contextual issues associated with seeking, testing, treating, and retaining African American and other Black people in HIV care. Additionally, the BTAN delegates reported on their BTAN workplans, gaining critical feedback from their peers.

Avac Event

Black PrEP Summit

On September 9, 2015, the Black AIDS Institute hosted the 2015 National Black PrEP Summit. The National Black PrEP Summit served as a call to action to identify best practices for PrEP uptake in Black communities and develop implementation strategies with participation from policymakers, local leaders, researchers and experts.

Program Mission

The goal of the Black Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Summit was to increase knowledge and uptake of PrEP among Black people in the United States through interactive conversations with clinicians, community members, and public health practitioners. The summit aimed to discuss socio-contextual, economic and political issues associated with PrEP uptake, and share best practices in surmounting these challenges.

Avac Event

PrEP, Possibility, Pregnancy and Breastfeeding

The US Women and PrEP working group discussed PrEP, pregnancy and breastfeeding on October 5. A recording of the webinar can be found here.

Avac Event

WHO Guidelines on when to start antiretroviral therapy and on pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV

WHO recently issued an “Early Release Guideline” on when to start antiretroviral therapy and on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV. This document recommends 1) initiation of ART in adults living with HIV, regardless of CD4 cell count, and 2) offer of PrEP as a prevention option to all people at substantial risk of acquiring HIV. (The release is “early” relative to a comprehensive update of its consolidated ARV guidelines, slated to come out at the end of the year.) If implemented, these sweeping recommendations have the potential to change the world by simplifying ART for people living with HIV and revolutionizing prevention for people at risk.

In this webinar, Meg Doherty and Bob Grant from the Department of HIV/AIDS at WHO, spoke about the guideline and took questions. Links to the full presentation, slides and audio are below.

And for more background, Meg Doherty gave a presentation at IAS 2015 in Vancouver. Download the slides or view the presentation.

Avac Event

Demanding Clarity on PrEP: Understanding recent data on oral PrEP

This webinar featured Jean-Michel Molina of the French research agency ANRS and Sheena McCormack of the UK Medical Research Council discussing the data from the IPERGAY and PROUD studies, respectively. Both trials evaluated oral TDF/FTC (brand name Truvada) as PrEP in gay men and other men who have sex with men, and both reported high levels of protection against HIV acquisition. PROUD prescribed a daily pill regimen; IPERGAY asked trial participants to follow an “event driven” regimen that involved a sequence of doses before and after sex. IPERGAY participants took an average of four doses per week—comparable to the estimated protective dose required in trials of daily oral PrEP.

Prepare for the webinar with these talks from CROI and excerpts from AVAC Report 2014/15: