CROI Round-Up; Post-Conference Webinar Series

News last week from the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston was dominated by new efficacy data from two vaginal ring trials that have implications for HIV prevention for women. Our take on it is here, along with a special page with more background than we could squeeze into a blog post. But, the CROI buzz wasn’t all about vaginal rings, and this update provides some ways to hear more about what happened last week and what it all means.

Post-CROI Webinar Series

We will be convening a series of post-CROI webinars covering a range of topics over the next couple of months. The first webinar in our series explored the ring results with advocates and researchers. Slides, audio and the Flash animation of the webinar are available here. And stay tuned for details about the additional webinars in the series!

In-Depth Analysis

In addition to lots of media reports and publications, our colleagues at NAM/aidsmap, The Body and NATAP all provided in-depth coverage of the myriad studies presented in oral abstract sessions, posters and more. Check out the hyperlinks above for comprehensive coverage.

CROI Program and Webcast

CROI provides a number of ways to review what happened in Boston: check out the full program; taped playbacks of press conferences; webcasts of all sessions; and electronic posters will be available a week after the conference. There was a wealth of information on a wide range of topics, but here is a selection of sessions and presentations you might want to explore:

  • Lifetime HIV risk in the US: New data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projected that 1 in 2 black gay men could be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. That number is 1 in 4 for Latino gay men and 1 in 49 for African American women. The figures for white men and women are far lower. These data highlight the ways that race impacts access to healthcare at every point in the treatment cascade. They suggest an urgent need to provide prevention including PrEP at a wider scale and with messages and programs that are community-designed and owned. They also provide another opportunity to examine the ways that alarming statistics do and do not advance a structural analysis of the problems and solutions to public health issues. As one article highlighted—individual risk calculations can lay the burden on individuals to change behavior when the drivers of risk are systemic, embedded and often out of individual control.
  • PrEP in the Real-er World: There was a lot of data on oral PrEP that, as expected, added layers to understanding of what the strategy is, and what it can and cannot do. It started with a presentation by Keith Green (University of Chicago) on Engaging Young Men of Color in Community HIV Prevention Studies and later Darrell Wheeler (SUNY Albany) presented an important PrEP study in Black MSM (HPTN 073), which showed that a culturally anchored “client-centered care coordination” model (C4) was important to getting men into and supported in a PrEP program. Other data gave some insight into additional components of PrEP programming and messaging. Presentations included findings that PrEP use can have a limited impact on renal function—as it can in people living with HIV who use TDF/FTC as part of treatment; an update from a New York City PrEP project where rates of sexually transmitted infections among PrEP users suggest that routine screening—at every clinic visit—should be the norm; and finally, a presentation of HIV infection in an adherent PrEP user who acquired TDF/FTC-resistant HIV. Each of these presentations raises concerns—and thebody.com has developed an excellent resource on the HIV-resistance data—but none are insurmountable or even surprising. Piloting PrEP in the real world is the only way to find out how best do deliver, message and monitor this new strategy to all populations at risk.
  • Long-Acting Injectables for Treatment—and Prevention: Antiretrotival treatment options took a step forward with the first injectable treatment option. 91 percent of patients in a study of the 8-week long-acting injectable cabotegravir and rilpivirine combination regimen maintained virological suppression and also expressed satisfaction with this new option in a new study. Both cabotegravir and rilpivirine are also being explored separately as PrEP agents. Marty Markowitz (Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center) presented results from the Phase IIa ÉCLAIR study that examined the safety and pharmokinetics of cabotegravir in HIV-uninfected men, setting the stage for a future Phase III efficacy trial.
  • Turning Targets into Treatment: A full abstract-driven session was devoted to Getting to 90/90/90 and included Tendani Gaolathe (Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership) presenting on how Botswana is approaching the 90-90-90 goal, getting to 83 percent (testing), 87 percent (on treatment) and 96 percent (virally suppressed) representing an overall level of viral suppression of 70 percent as compared to the 73 percent goal of the 90-90-90 goals. Factors predictive of not being virally suppressed included youth, male gender, single status and, interestingly, higher education level. At the same time, there was a presentation on how Malawi is using its Option B+ rollout to prepare for universal treatment. The challenges of Option B+ could be seen in the 25 percent drop off in post-partum adherence by women after six months. And in a separate session, Helen Ayles (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) presented Missing But in Action: Where Are the Men? raising an emerging discussion of how to reach HIV-positive men with treatment programs. Strategies suggested include taking testing outside antenatal clinics and engagement through men’s clubs and even bars. While reaching these men is important, it remains critical that treatment for all who need it remain a focus.
  • Rectal Microbicides Well Received: Ross Cranston (MTN) presented data from MTN 017, the first Phase II rectal microbicide gel study—it showed no safety risk and both adherence and acceptability were high. The open-label trial looked at a rectal formulation of tenofovir gel inserted via vaginal applicator, comparing its daily use with event-driven (used before and after sex) use. A third study regimen included the use of daily oral Truvada as PrEP. All 195 MSM and transgender women cycled through each of the three regimens for eight weeks. Adherence feedback was provided to participants through daily texts, returned applicators and real-time drug levels reporting. This contributed to high adherence across all study regimens. Overall preference favors Truvada as PrEP slightly over event-driven tenofovir gel, but the difference is not statistically significant. Daily gel application came in a close third. Cranston concluded that due to these results, rectal tenofovir gel is worthy of further study. Research is already underway to expand the pipeline of rectal microbicide products in order to find the right product to move forward into an effectiveness study, said Ian McGowan (MTN), co-author of the study.
  • New Cure Work Discussed at CROI: On the day before CROI officially opened, the AIDS Treatment Activists Coalition, AVAC, European AIDS Treatment Group, Project Inform and TAG co-sponsored a community workshop on scientific, regulatory and community engagement issues in HIV cure research, which included an update on an exciting and emerging area using bNAbs for treatment and acute infection in the FRESH (Females Rising through Education, Support, and Health) cohort in South Africa. Presentations are posted online.

Medical Distrust: The Real Reason for PrEP Misgivings in the Black Community

At this year’s National African American MSM Leadership Summit on HIV/AIDS and Other Health Disparities (#NAESM2016), a white doctor stood before a room filled with hundreds of black men at the opening plenary luncheon and talked about how many people “need” to get on PrEP.

I get it. PrEP is the one of the best biomedical prevention tools available to people at risk for HIV infection today. PrEP is safe and effective. PrEP works if you take it correctly. I get it. What I don’t get is why a white doctor would be invited to stand before a room full of black men and tell them that they need to use this medication. The message may be appropriate, but the messenger (and how the message is delivered) matters.

There are lots of barriers to PrEP uptake among black MSM, but beyond the issues of risk perception, healthcare access, provider and consumer PrEP knowledge, PrEP stigma, and homophobia, the elephant in the room is still the history of medical distrust in the African-American community. Distrust of the medical system has been a barrier to care for African Americans since long before the AIDS epidemic started. Black people in the US have the highest mortality rates due to heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers, partially because of our distrust of medical providers. There is also the lingering legacy of mistreatment by researchers—particularly during the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment—which left black people in the US wary of medical programs and clinical trials.

Medical distrust existed decades prior to the shocking revelations over the 40-year-long Tuskegee study, wherein black men with syphilis were left untreated in order to observe the natural progression of the disease. Dangerous, involuntary and unethical experiments have been carried out on African American subjects at least since the eighteenth century. Accounts of medical and personal violation were passed down orally, from generation to generation. Medical distrust could contribute to the slow uptake of PrEP among black men.

Beyond the importance of both the message and the messenger, we have to recognize that HIV prevention has been medicalized. After 30 years of abstinence, partner reduction, and condoms, we can’t talk about ending HIV today without talking about research and pills and big pharmaceutical companies that make (and charge) ridiculous amounts of money. That looks suspicious as hell to a whole lot of black folks.

Perceptions of greed and racism in routine medical care all contribute to the distrust of physicians. What other people may see as routine medical care is often perceived by African Americans as experimentation, especially when the message is that a certain number of black men “need” to be on PrEP. (Again, how the message is delivered matters.)

And – in the spirit of Black History Month in the era of #BlackLivesMatter – we don’t trust the police (or any part of the criminal justice system). They will pull you over for driving-while-black, beat you off-camera, and say you did it to yourself. We don’t trust politicians (or any part of government). They will have you drinking water from the Flint River as if it were red Kool-Aid. People who have experienced racism or discrimination from individuals or institutions are less willing to be vulnerable and place trust in a system of unknowns such as medical care.

We’ve been beating around the bush. We’ve been picking the low-hanging fruit because issues of medical distrust are too difficult to deal with head-on.

Solutions such as the recruitment of minority healthcare administrators and executives and the presence of Community Advisory Boards that represents the the people help to change the perceptions of African American patients, but we have to do better. Short of a revolution at the polls or in the streets we need to expand support for efforts like AVAC’s PxROAR and the Black AIDS Institute’s African American HIV University, which aim to develop leadership and expertise in the communities most impacted by the epidemic.

There are all kinds of ways to frame it. The GIPA principle recognizes that personal experiences of people living with HIV and AIDS are important in shaping the response; Abraham Lincoln said that government systems should be “of the people, by the people, for the people”; and the name of 90’s American hip hop clothing company FUBU is an acronym for “For Us By Us”. If gay, black men are the group most at-risk for HIV infection in the United States, then they must be allowed to take lead roles in educating our communities about HIV prevention options.

The messenger matters. Gaining the trust of black men in the health care system is imperative if we are to reduce health disparities including incomparable rates of new HIV infections in young, gay black men.

New Px Wire: What to Watch in 2016

There are few, if any, quiet years in HIV prevention research and implementation. 2016 promises to be another year of big deal data, whether it’s findings from clinical trials, funding levels or readouts from PEPFAR’s first year of a geographically focused program plan. We write about this and a lot more to watch for in our new issue of Px Wire.

Click here to download the new issue.

We take a look at the bigger picture in our centerspread. Check it out for the most current version of AVAC’s classic timeline of biomedical HIV prevention research. But don’t get too attached—some of the trials mentioned in the timeline will have updates presented next week at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. We’ll always have an updated version in our Infographics Gallery—and save the date for a March 1 webinar to discuss the latest data and what’s next?

The full issue of Px Wire, as well as our archive of old issues and information on ordering print copies, can be found at www.avac.org/pxwire.

As always, we welcome your questions and comments at [email protected].

Effectiveness and Adherence in Trials of Oral and Topical Tenofovir-Based Prevention

Trials of oral and topical tenofovir-based PrEP show that these strategies reduce risk of HIV inection if they are used correctly and consistently. Higher adherence is directly linked to greater levels of protection.

UNAIDS Profiles Six PrEP Pioneers, Uncovering Strategies, Concerns, Motivations and More

Succinct yet informative interviews with six leading PrEP advocates highlight the many steps of the process from research to rollout where they are gaining ground. The international group featured in this UNAIDS Community Advocacy Update discusses the history of PrEP advocacy and next steps in translating WHO’s 2015 recommendation of daily oral tenofovir-based PrEP as an option for those at substantial risk of HIV acquisition.

The advocates profiled in the update include Brian Kanyemba of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation in South Africa and a 2011 AVAC Fellow; Sally-Jean Shackleton of the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) in South Africa; Midnight Poonkasetwattana of the Asia-Pacific Coalition for Male Sexual Health (APCOM) in Thailand; Bathabile Nyathi from the Centre for Sexual Health & HIV/AIDS Research (CeSHHAR) in Zimbabwe; Pedro Goicochea from Peru and now at the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research; and AVAC Executive Director Mitchell Warren in the United States.

Anatomy of a Target – PrEP

In Px Wire, our quarterly newsletter, we looked at the strengths and limitations of new PEPFAR targets, new UNAIDS targets, new guidelines on ART and PrEP from the WHO and new Sustainable Development Goals.

In this excerpt from our centerspread graphic, we take a closer look at PrEP.

When PrEP Educators Don’t Like PrEP: Minister Rob Newells’ message to naysayers

What do you do when the people responsible for implementing PrEP education programs don’t trust the science? What if the outreach workers and HIV test counselors believe they’re required to “push” PrEP at the expense of behavioral interventions that have been the focus of prevention programs for years? These are people in prime positions to provide PrEP education to key populations, but suggesting that otherwise healthy clients start a daily medication for prevention is a tough pill for some front-line staff to swallow.

I am a black MSM. I serve at a community-based organization where a large percentage of both the clients and employees are black MSM. One of the known barriers to PrEP implementation among black MSM is medical mistrust. Those barriers don’t just exist among clients; they also exist among members of the HIV workforce tasked with increasing PrEP awareness in their communities. If members of the HIV workforce don’t trust the medical establishment or clinical research or pharmaceutical companies or government agencies, how do we expect them to provide unbiased information about PrEP to the people who need it most?

With all of the good work HIV prevention research advocates have done educating the public about PrEP, there has been more than enough misinformation disseminated about PrEP to create and encourage lingering doubt in the minds of those who are already mistrustful of the medicalization of HIV and the perceived influence of pharmaceutical companies on the HIV prevention agenda. After the 2015 National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta, I listened to staff members who had attended as they reported back to staff that stayed behind:

  • “There are lots of things we still don’t know.” (Never mind that we know HIV incidence in our Black MSM community is an overall 32 percent, surpassing rates in many populations in sub-Saharan Africa.)
  • “We need more information.” (Never mind clinical trials and real-world evidence showing that PrEP is safe and effective and therefore FDA-approved and WHO-recommended.)
  • “There are still questions about the long-term effects of the drug.” (Never mind that we have more than a decade of experience of Truvada in people who are HIV positive.)
  • “People who take PrEP stop using condoms, and STI rates are increasing.” (Never mind the fact that STI rates started increasing before most people had even heard of PrEP. Furthermore, CDC PrEP protocol recommends STI screening, and treatment if necessary, every three months.)

So what do we do when the people responsible for implementing PrEP education programs don’t trust the science?

If I could talk to all of the PrEP-hater educators, I’d tell them that I wish Truvada had been available for HIV prevention when I was treated for syphilis in 2003. It took several months to get to a syphilis diagnosis because I was treated for a skin rash and gout and had a sigmoidoscopy (an invasive large-intestine probe) before the doctor even ordered an HIV test. (This was before rapid testing was widely available, so I had to think about all of my risky behaviors for a couple of weeks before I got the call that the test was negative.) It was the only time I had ever been worried about HIV infection. It took a while longer before the doctor ordered an STI screening, discovered the syphilis, and ordered the appropriate treatment.

After dodging that bullet, I would have jumped at the chance to protect myself from HIV infection by taking a pill every day. I was in my early thirties; I was a personal fitness trainer in Washington, DC with a good day job; and I had a fairly active sex life. Sometimes I used condoms. Sometimes I didn’t. I had never had any concerns before, but that syphilis scared the hell out of me. It didn’t scare me after I found out what it was because syphilis is totally treatable. It scared me when I thought that I might have been infected with HIV. (It didn’t, however, scare me enough to make me increase my condom use to 100 percent consistently and correctly.) If a pill a day could take the worry of HIV infection from me, I would have been all for it. I wouldn’t have been concerned about long-term side effects or toxicities. I was concerned about living.

If Truvada had been available as PrEP when I tested positive for syphilis in 2003, I probably wouldn’t have tested positive for HIV in 2005. The silver lining is that PrEP is available now. There are black MSM now – who like me then – would jump at the chance to protect themselves from HIV infection by taking one pill every day during their season of risk if they could have accurate, unbiased information about PrEP.

To all of the people responsible for implementing and educating communities about PrEP who don’t like PrEP, I say, “It’s not about you.” Your questions have been asked and answered. PrEP works (and is safe and effective) when it is taken according to the prescribing guidelines. Don’t let your personal or professional biases and misinformation become a barrier to key populations like black MSM accessing an HIV prevention option that might be right for them. PrEP is not appropriate for everybody, but everybody needs to know about PrEP. Get out of the way.

Rob Newells is the newly appointed Executive Director of AIDS Project of the East Bay; he is minister and founder of the the HIV program at Imani Community Church in Oakland and is a PxROAR member since 2012.

South Africa and Kenya Approval of Oral PrEP Should Spur Rollout

Less than a month after South Africa’s national regulatory authority, the Medicines Control Council, approved tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC, or trade name Truvada) for PrEP, Kenya took the same step. The country’s Pharmacy and Poisons Board (PPB)—the regulatory body that considers new drugs—also approved TDF/FTC for PrEP for adults at high risk of sexually acquiring HIV-1 infection.

Notably, the PPB made this decision within 30 days of receiving a submission from Gilead, the drug’s manufacturer. This swift approval sets a strong precedent for other countries and should spur other countries and global health organizations to quickly follow suit.

Both countries’ approvals of TDF/FTC as PrEP is the capstone on a transformational year for PrEP. The French Ministry of Health granted provisional approval of TDF/FTC as PrEP in November; the World Health Organization recommended PrEP as an additional prevention option for all people at substantial risk of HIV infection worldwide in September; and the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board recommended swift integration of PrEP into comprehensive HIV prevention programs in PEPFAR countries. This October recommendation came with a particular focus on young women at high risk as well as gay men and other men who have sex with men, and recommended steps to overcome regulatory barriers in countries where PrEP is not yet approved.

Daily oral PrEP is finally beginning to take its place as a core element of global HIV prevention.

But PrEP rollout is still happening far too slowly for millions of women and men at risk for HIV. Other countries need to follow the leadership of Kenya and South Africa and find ways to deliver this life-saving option today.

Young women, especially, are in desperate need of new prevention options they can control. While regulatory approval in these two countries should help accelerate access to oral PrEP, additional work is needed to ensure that millions of women, and men, from across the globe are able to benefit from a breakthrough that was developed expressly for them.

To elevate this from rhetoric to on-the-ground access and impact, a coordinated, global push to secure additional regulatory approvals, mobilize funding, raise awareness, generate demand and establish systems to get PrEP into the hands of all people most likely to benefit is needed. South Africa and Kenya’s experiences may offer a model for other nations, but there is no reason to wait. PEPFAR, the Global Fund and other key stakeholders (including Gilead Sciences and the generic manufacturers of TDF/FTC) should be working with countries to break down barriers to PrEP access within the next year.

For more information:

A December Reading List

It’s the holiday season and in many parts of the world that means lists: of gifts, things to be thankful for, things that are needed and, sometimes, things to read. This week, which began with World AIDS Day, brought more reading material than we can possibly plow through between now and New Year’s Eve. So, in the holiday spirit, here’s a guide to some of the highlights from the new releases and who in your life might enjoy them most.

For the Walk-the-Talk Activist: As described in this post from AVAC’s P-values blog, this week’s International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) in Zimbabwe has brought bold advocacy and activism from women’s groups, sex workers, gay men and other men who have sex with men, trans-diverse people, women living with HIV and many other groups. Unfortunately, there have also been rights violations and harassment of people, including many individuals from “key populations”. Our blog provides first-hand accounts and info on how UNAIDS responded.

For Anyone with a “Wonder Woman” in their Lives: An AVAC blog on the new Innovation Challenge for the DREAMS Initiative, a program aimed at adolescent girls and young women. The Innovation Fund is designed to infuse additional money into bold programs—and bring in new private-sector partners.

For the Implementation Advocate (who can live without photo captions): The new World Health Organization policy brief on what’s new in the second edition of the Consolidated Guidelines on the Use of Antiretrovirals (ARVs). If you feel like you’ve missed the second edition (the first, issued in 2013, can be found here), fear not. The full guideline still isn’t out—WHO has said to watch for it in 2016. But this policy brief gives important highlights and expands on the early release guideline on PrEP and when to start ART, which came out in September.

The newest document highlights what’s truly new. In the ART section, WHO, for the first time, advances a “differentiated care” approach that sees people living with HIV in categories other than CD4 cell count, and pregnant or not. The document begins to map what it would take to deliver services in a world where people who are unstable on ART receive one type of intervention, those who are healthy and newly diagnosed, and so on. It won’t be easy—but it wouldn’t be possible without this type of detail.

If you’re looking for captioned photos, this is a document to avoid: pictures of people apparently from low- and middle-income countries abound, but with no identifiers, and it’s hard to tell when, where or why the pictures were taken. In a document that recommends looking closely at each individual and his or her reality, the illustrations would be a great place to start.

For the Two-Briefs-Are-Always-Better-Than-One Advocate and the PrEP-Curious Reader: A two-page policy brief on PrEP from WHO that’s short and to-the-point. This is a great handout to show to people who want just the facts on why WHO now states “#offerprep” as a strong recommendation.

For the Number Cruncher (who likes photo captions): Volume Four of the One Campaign’s “Unfinished Business” report on global financing for HIV manages to be both clear, simple and comprehensive about who is spending what—at the country level and in the private sector. It also features country-specific pages and recommendations, trend analyses and clear advocacy “asks” for the Global Fund, African countries—and more. Fans of captions will be happy to see that every picture has an explanation of who is shown, where they are from and what they do.

For the Unsatisfied Realist: Treatment on Demand for All, a policy analysis paper by Health GAP and partners that maps the gaps between policy and reality when it comes to ART access worldwide. Noting that fewer than 1 out of 10 people living with HIV worldwide live in a country where immediate ART (as recommended by the WHO) is current policy, the report describes the state of, and remedies for, this great global divide.

For the Precision-Minded PrEPster: The full New England Journal of Medicine article presenting the findings from the IPERGAY trial that evaluated “on-demand” PrEP in gay men in France and Canada. Steer clear of the press release and subsequent media which suggests that the study found evidence that coitally-related dosing is effective and head straight for the discussion section which clearly states that the only conclusion IPERGAY can draw is that four pills per week provides high levels of protection in this study population.

Evaluation of the levels of drug needed to provide protection in the context of anal sex back up this conclusion—which, for now, is clear evidence that a daily PrEP regimen can be forgiving of a few missed doses for gay men and transwomen. Now is not the time to shift from the message that a pill a day provides protection. For more on PrEP’s pipeline and interpretation of the IPERGAY results, check out the two articles in POZ magazine.

Pour les Francais et leurs Amis: For the French and those who love them, lift a glass for resilience in the face of terror and another for the announcement from French Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine that will bring government-subsidized PrEP to those who need and want it.

For the Speed Readers: Ending the HIV-AIDS Pandemic—Follow the Science, an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. In it, Anthony Fauci and Hilary Marston of the US NIH need just over 1,000 words to summarize the science that has defined progress in the epidemic.

Happy reading—and let us know what’s on your list!

AVAC on World AIDS Day: We’re 20. We’re not giving up.

When AVAC was founded in 1995, we were called the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. Our singular goal was to advance swift, ethical research for a vaccine that was then — and is today — essential to bring the epidemic to a conclusive end.

Twenty years later, AVAC is still focused on swift and ethical research, but our scope has expanded. Along with vaccines, we advocate for PrEP, microbicides, voluntary medical male circumcision and more.

Through it all, our message has been the same: prevention is the center of the AIDS response. Not just any prevention but smart, evidence-based, community-owned, rights-based strategies.

We do this work because it’s essential. We are able to do it because of our robust partnerships worldwide. We will keep doing it — with your help — until the epidemic has, finally, come to an end.

We’ve experienced 20 years of breakthroughs and disappointments in prevention research. A vaccine that many had given up on was the first to provide modest protection. One microbicide everyone hoped for didn’t pan out. Male circumcision and PrEP studies overcame skepticism and, together with antiretroviral therapy, paved the way for a prevention revolution.

Through it all, AVAC has worked with partners to maintain the field’s focus and press for continued research into an AIDS vaccine, a cure and more.

When AVAC was founded, the only biomedical HIV prevention options for adults were male and female condoms. The pathway for introducing any new strategy was largely unmapped. No one knew where the gaps would be—between trial result and country action, between guidance and financial support. Now we do.

Over two decades, AVAC has not only identified the gaps; we’ve worked to bridge them, so that products reach people in programs that work — without delay.

Twenty years ago, advocacy for HIV prevention hardly existed. So AVAC helped build a global network of advocates equipped with effective advocacy strategies and the latest evidence.

With our support, they are putting prevention on the agenda in countries and communities around the globe.

When the world lacked a plan for ending AIDS, we helped create one.

Now we’re holding global leaders accountable for results — demanding the resources, policies and evidence-based plans needed to deliver all of today’s prevention options to the people who need them, and to plan for the rapid rollout of new options as they emerge.

Communities’ support for prevention research can never be taken for granted — it has to be earned. For 20 years, we’ve helped build trust between researchers, funders and communities to speed the ethical development and rollout of new prevention options.

And when controversy threatened to derail those efforts, AVAC provided leadership and resources to help get them back on track.

Your gift to AVAC will support our efforts to accelerate the development and delivery of HIV prevention options to men and women worldwide. With your help, we can continue to convene, collaborate and communicate a strong, clear and cohesive vision for HIV prevention today, tomorrow and to end the epidemic.

It will take all of us working together to end AIDS. Please join us.