Avac Event

New Guidance on Daily Oral PrEP: What’s out there and what does it mean for advocates?

Representatives from the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, the Southern African HIV Clinicians Society, the British HIV Association and the British Association for Sexual Health and Gilead Sciences will discuss various guidelines on the use of and FDA approval of daily TDF/FTC as PrEP.

This webinar will familiarize advocates with the types of regulatory and normative guidance documents that exist on PrEP—what they say, who they affect and what they may mean for policy and programming in various countries.

Avac Event

The Doc Is In: Prescribing, Managing and Billing for PrEP for HIV Prevention

The Los Angeles County PrEP Workgroup and AVAC’s PxROAR program presented the webinar The Doc is In: Prescribing, Managing and Billing for PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) for HIV Prevention. This webinar aimed to address some of the key issues around PrEP prescribing, such as concerns around drug resistance, cost and reimbursement, risk assessment and side effects, among others.

We were joined by Dr. Nika Seidman and Shannon Weber from the Bay Area Perinatal AIDS Center, and Dr. Tony Mills, a general medicine practitioner specializing in HIV care in Los Angeles.

View the full webinar here.

Avac Event

Risky Women: Disrupting simple notions of women’s HIV risk

The final webinar of the Fall series discussed what is known from social and behavioral science and community experience about the definitions and perceptions of HIV risk among women that are relevant to their potential PrEP use.

Avac Event

PrEP-ception: Sero-discordant couples using PrEP to reduce HIV transmission risk during pregnancy

The second in a series of webinars by the US Women and PrEP Working Group discussed the possibilities and challenges associated with serodiscordant couples using PrEP to help them achieve pregnancy safely.

Avac Event

Ready, Set, PrEP: Update on current research and rollout of PrEP for women in the US

The US Women and PrEP Working Group held a webinar to discuss the latest in research and rollout of PrEP for women in the US. To learn more about the US Women and PrEP Working Group (and hear about upcoming webinars), visit www.prepwatch.org.

Avac Event

Thai Intravenous Drug User PrEP Trial Results

AVAC and the Harm Reduction Coalition organized a teleconference to discuss the recent results of the Bangkok Tenofovir Study, a Thai trial of pre-exposure prophylaxis in injecting drug users.

Presentations were followed by a Q&A session. Questions unanswered during the webinar are addressed in a supporting document, available here.

Also worth checking out, Beyond the Hype: PrEP for people who inject drugs by Daniel Wolfe.

Peter Katleho Ntheri

Updated January 2024

Peter is a social scientist. He is a member of Lesotho’s (CCM) Country Coordinating Mechanism for the Global Fund and sits on its Proposal Development Committee. He is also a member of Lesotho’s PrEP Technical Working Group.

Impact

As member of Lesotho’s CCM, Peter secured funding for the dapivirine vaginal ring, scale-up of HIV self-testing and multi-month dispensing of oral PrEP.

Catherine Madebe

Updated January 2024

Catherine works at the intersection of adolescent girls and young women and sexual and reproductive health. She co-leads the AGWY Forum, founded with 2018 Fellow Alumni Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi, and is a leading member of the Tanzania HIV Prevention Coalition. Catherine was named SRHR Best Celebrity in Eastern and Southern Africa for her outstanding performance by the Southern African AIDS Trust.

Impact

Catherine cofounded Tanzania’s AGYW Forum, the leading national level advocacy network for HIV prevention of young women. She also won increased funding for AGYW through her direct involvement in the Global Fund and PEPFAR processes.

Media

Materials

Josephine Chinele

Josephine is multi-award winning journalist. She has been in the profession for 13 years and has done numerous health journalism fellowships, specializing in HIV/AIDS, general health and human rights. Josephine has also traveled extensively in pursuit of various journalism trainings and fellowships. Notably in 2018, she was selected to train in HIV science reporting and covered the International AIDS Conference held in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Why I Want to Advocate for HIV Prevention in 2019, and what I Plan To Do
My advocacy started from my work as a journalist pursuing investigative reporting and feature writing with a strong advocacy voice. This work exposed key policy issues such as the need for young women to access PrEP. In 2019, I will take aim to influence the Malawi government so that policies elevate adolescent girls and young women as a priority population for PrEP rollout. Specifically, I will advocate for an enabling environment for PrEP introduction, accurate and effective media coverage of HIV prevention, community engagement around ongoing research in Malawi and preparation for the potential introduction of the dapivirine ring.

Media

Sarah Nabia

Sarah is currently pursuing an MPH/MBA dual degree student at Bloomberg School of Public Health and Carey Business School, Johns Hopkins University. She has worked among female sex workers, men who have sex with men and transgender persons across Southern Karnataka in India. Her work has focused on advocating for the inclusion of PrEP as part of combination prevention in the national HIV prevention policy. Sarah has also implemented a community-led approach to battling tuberculosis.

Fellowship Focus
While PrEP has been well received in India’s demonstration studies, it has also cultivated a groundswell of demand among the sex worker community at large. Sarah built political and community support for broader PrEP rollout. She mobilized stakeholders and directly participated in the development of India’s draft PrEP policy and guidelines, helping to ensure that they were inclusive of sex workers’ needs. She trained leading sex worker advocates in five states to pressure their State AIDS Control Societies for PrEP rollout and sensitized national media to report on the need for PrEP.

In Their Own Words
Map your field–allies, obstructures and the indifferent. Know their strengths and weaknesses. Every person can be a useful contributor in your efforts. There are no permanent friends or foes in advocacy.