Josephine Kamarebe

At the time of her Fellowship project, Josephine was a program officer at HDI, where she was in charge of advocacy and policy monitoring. She has been involved in various advocacy campaigns for the decriminalization of LGBTI people, sex workers and abortion and has advocated for health and development for potter communities. Prior to her Fellowship year, she coordinated the SHARE project, which aims to empower youths with knowledge about sexual and reproductive health.

Fellowship Focus
Josephine helped create a favorable environment for the rollout of PrEP among the most at-risk populations. She worked with policy makers to include PrEP in the national guidelines. She built a civil society coalition to facilitate demands to policy makers and other key stakeholders. In addition to PrEP, Josephine advocated for treatment as prevention in the country’s national strategic plan and monitored VMMC rollout.

In Their Own Words
For those working with the key populations, it is better to empower them to speak on their own. It gives an added value and augments the policy and decision-makers to act accordingly.

Peter Michira

Peter is a Technical Advisor at Partners PrEP Scale-Up Project in Kenya. At the time of his Fellowship project, he had more than 12 years of experience working in HIV/AIDS programs. He has been involved in the coordination of field activities at the Partners in Prevention clinical trials site in Thika since 2006. He also worked as the focal point for the community within the Partners PrEP HIV discordant couples study, the largest study to date involving 4,758 HIV discordant couples.

Fellowship Focus
The positive results of the Partners PrEP study gave Peter the insight to lobby for the adoption of PrEP as an HIV prevention strategy in Kenya. In his project, Peter built a favorable environment and partnerships with key stakeholders. He formed a PrEP advocacy coalition within civil society and succeeded in getting PrEP funded through the Global Fund. Peter also worked with the media to cover the need for PrEP and its place in the HIV management continuum of care.

In Their Own Words
The Future Fellow will take over the mantle through close association with the various stakeholders and through the newly formed coalition.

Alice Kayongo

Alice is the Regional Policy and Advocacy Manager at AHF where she is involved in health policy and advocacy work in Lesotho, Malawi and East and West Africa broadly. She also leads a team of volunteers within a not-for-profit initiative called “We Rise and Prosper” (WRAP) with the aim of contributing toward poverty reduction, improved health outcomes and fairness in society. Alice is an activist and an active participant in the health, women’s and children’s rights civil society movement and development sector in Uganda and internationally. She is part of many successful social movements and coalitions in Uganda. At the time of her Fellowship, Alice was finalizing a campaign on “What’s preventing prevention of HIV/AIDS in Uganda?”.

Fellowship Focus
Alice’s objective was to influence policy on Treatment as Prevention. She led efforts to adopt a national treatment program based on universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment and education, to increase health funding for HIV/AIDS and intensify the fight against corruption, to attract and retain health workers evenly in all parts of the country and to implement a combination of interventions for HIV prevention such as VMMC, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission and PrEP. Her coalition-building work solidified civil society’s role in influencing the allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars through PEPFAR’s Country Operational Plans and the Global Fund in Uganda and globally.

In Their Own Words
With greater political and financial support, the Treatment as Prevention approach can make a big difference.

Grace Kamau

Grace is currently the Regional Coordinator of the Africa Sex Workers Alliance (ASWA). Before her Fellowship project, she was involved in HIV prevention programs with the Bar Hostess Empowerment and Support Programme (BHSP), which supports a membership of more than forty thousand sex workers, and where she worked as project officer coordinating sex workers across Kenya. She was the Secretary of the Sex Worker Alliance for Kenya and sits on the Kenya Technical Advisory body for sex workers.

Fellowship Focus
Grace engaged sex workers and bar hostesses to better facilitate acceptance and engagement with PrEP and microbicides research. She explored the issues and concerns about possible future access to these interventions for sex workers and bar hostesses. As Fellow, she engaged policy makers on the benefits that these potential HIV prevention interventions could have for high-risk groups.

In Their Own Words
Sex workers are an easy target in a time of crisis. Clients feel they can take advantage of them, and law enforcement think they can use them to show that they are implementing COVID-19 measures.

Media

Brian Kanyemba

After ten years as advocate, Brian’s focus is now on HIV prevention and HIV funding in the African region. Brian’s advocacy has been directed toward obtaining better access to HIV education and prevention tools for the communities that need them the most. Before becoming a fellow, he brought this experience to his work at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, where he serves as a research assistant for the Men’s Health division. In this position, Brian worked daily with participants on the Global iPrEx study, and he has used this opportunity to refine his perspective on HIV biomedical prevention options.

Fellowship Focus
Brian’s project brought attention to underrepresented voices of the MSM community and fostered their engagement in HIV prevention research. He helped bring their ideas, opinions, concerns and knowledge to the question of how best to scale up PrEP as an HIV prevention intervention. He worked with service providers, community leaders, policy makers and other stakeholders to encourage them to involve MSM in future prevention programming and to increase their overall focus and inclusion of this vulnerable community in their work, research and/or services. Brian allowed for the mainstreaming of guidelines, national policies and laws to better reflect the opinions raised by MSM.

In Their Own Words
PrEP programs can be started quickly using existing facilities and staff. MSM are willing to pay for PrEP if delivered at an affordable price. Active education and outreach are needed to reach diverse groups of MSM for PrEP.

Pregnant and Lactating People (PLP) in Ongoing HIV Prevention Trials

Lessons Learned for Delivery PrEP Implementation

Current trends for investment in HIV prevention R&D by technology

Avac Event

PrEP That Booty: The latest on rectal microbicide research for the back door

Thursday, June 29 at 9:00 AM–10:30AM ET

Most of what we hear about regarding the HIV prevention pipeline is about long-acting, longer-acting, and even longer-acting products that deliver drug throughout the body and require a trained clinician to deliver. However, these attributes are not desirable to many folks, and communities want a range of choices. Researchers and advocates for years have been working on HIV prevention products specifically for the back door (rectum) to provide protection during anal intercourse. These products are user-controlled, non-systemic (the drug stays in the booty and only the booty), and are short-acting, so you don’t have to commit to having a prevention drug in your body for a year or longer. Join us for a dynamic discussion regarding the latest research on Booty PrEP – aka rectal microbicides – with our multi-talented panel.

Speakers include: Jonathan Baker, PA, Laser Surgery Care, Dr. Craig Hendrix, Johns Hopkins, Juan Michael Porter II, The Body, and Dr. Sharon Riddler, University of Pittsburgh

Register here.

Avac Event

PrEP (In)equity: Documenting, measuring, and flipping the script towards justice

Tuesday, May 9 at 9:00 AM–10:30AM ET

Disparities in PrEP awareness, access, and uptake are stark in the United States, and play out along lines of race, gender, age, and geography. While we see increases in PrEP uptake overall, these metrics tend to mask the fact that the people who most need PrEP are not to be found in those numbers. As we see new modes of PrEP delivery become available, we are concerned these “shiny new things” will be yet another way to measure disparities and not actually help those who most need it. We must focus on these inequities with laser-like intensity, allocate resources using an equity model, and strive harder for PrEP justice.

Speakers include: Leisha-McKinley Beach, National HIV/AIDS Consultant, Michael Chancley, PrEP4All, and Dr. Patrick Sullivan, Emory

Register here.