PrEP Funding Opportunity Announcement

Through the Corporate Grants program, Gilead is looking to support efforts of community-based organizations, public health entities and similar umbrella organizations focused on high-risk populations to educate their constituents and healthcare providers about the role of PrEP as part of comprehensive HIV prevention. Gilead will consider a wide range of ideas that reach diverse geographic locations within the United States.

 

Find out more by visiting:  http://hivdatf.org/2015/06/02/pre-exposure-prophylaxis-prep-for-hiv-prevention-funding-opportunity-announcement/

After FACTS: What’s next for HIV prevention in women?

FACTS 001, which released data at CROI, found no evidence of protection overall associated with the vaginal gel. Partners Demonstration Project, which reported data at the same meeting, found that serodiscordant couples using oral PrEP and/or ART had very low levels of HIV transmission. In this webinar, we discussed what these and other data meant for women, including young and adolescent girls.

Government Should Give Guidance on Drugs that Prevent HIV

This piece by a 2014 AVAC Fellow marks the latest efforts by Ugandan civil society to secure pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) access. Author Charles Brown is an advocate, based at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI), who spent the last year and a half advocating for PrEP rollout for groups at high-risk of HIV infection including young women, sex workers, men who have sex with men and serodiscordant couples in Uganda. Read his article here.

Selected Guide to Pipeline of Antibodies, Long-Acting ARVs and Vaccines

This graphic provides a quick primer on passive immunization with HIV-specific antibodies, long-acting antiretroviral injectables, and preventive vaccines, including a new, informative table reviewing the pipelines in research and development for all three research avenues.

Px Wire April-June 2015, Vol. 8, No. 2

Px Wire is AVAC’s quarterly update covering the latest in the field of biomedical HIV prevention research, implementation and advocacy. In this issue, you’ll find updates and how WHO is approaching broader guidance on oral PrEP and a closer look at passive immunization.

Our centerspread provides a quick primer on passive immunization with HIV-specific antibodies, long-acting antiretroviral injectables, and preventive vaccines, including a new, informative table reviewing the pipelines in research and development for all three research avenues.

New Issue of Px Wire: Action on Oral PrEP and Updates on Antibodies

The new issue of Px Wire, AVAC’s quarterly newsletter on HIV prevention research and implementation, is now available.

Click here to download.

In this issue, you’ll find:

  • Updates on how WHO is approaching broader guidance on oral PrEP—and what advocates think should happen next.
  • A closer look at passive immunization, an expanding area of research referring to the administration of laboratory-generated antibodies. Passive immunization is being explored in people living with HIV in attempts to help control viral replication and/or serve as part of a cure strategy. It is also being explored for HIV prevention.
  • And this issue’s centerspread provides a quick primer on passive immunization with HIV-specific antibodies, long-acting antiretroviral injectables, and preventive vaccines, including a new, informative table reviewing the pipelines in research and development for all three research avenues.

Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Works—It’s Time to Deliver

A commentary from the leadership of the International AIDS Society on the urgency and relevance of implementing daily oral PrEP as an HIV prevention option for all people at risk of HIV. PrEP isn’t a magic bullet or a strategy that will be everything for everyone, but it’s a key choice to have at the right place at the right time for people in need. This new piece underscores the advocacy case laid out in AVAC’s call for increasing attention to PrEP.

Fighting to Save My Younger Brother’s Life

This article first appeared in the Huffington Post.

Matthew Rose is an HIV and public health advocate based in Washington, DC. He is an adviser at the Young Black Gay Men’s Leadership Initiative and also a member of AVAC’s PxROAR program and Vaccine Advocacy Resource Group.

His life and love are what hold us together in stories and statics. I think of him as my younger brother. Though it is not blood relation, we are related nonetheless. By something more than just the color of our skin but the attraction we feel within. The desire to press our flesh to another men’s flesh in a shared experience, to join with them in a moment of passion and pleasure. This desire marks this younger man as one like me. A younger self that walks his own path but still must navigate the barriers I could not clear away. Having to be unaware of that the map I tried to leave him, the secrets are tried to share are still out of his view.

Research tells us that current rates of HIV infection among a cohort of Black young gay men who are uninfected at age 18 will lead to, approximately 41 percent of them being HIV seropositive by age 40. We need to change that estimation. We have to find a way to stem the tide before the wave crests. Otherwise what hope do we have for generations of young men who are still waking to their sexuality and sexual orientation? Will they too be sentenced to this reality? When will we stop acting as if young people aren’t able to make decisions about what to do with their bodies and decisions about how to protect their bodies?

The breakwater starts by giving them power, choices, knowledge, and access to life changing options.

No state expressly prohibits minors’ access to PrEP or other HIV prevention methods. All jurisdictions expressly allow some minors to consent to medical care for the diagnosis or treatment of STIs, but only eight jurisdictions allow consent to preventive or prophylactic services.

In denying access to PrEP, we are taking away their ability to make choices later. By doing so, we take away an effective option at a time of great need, undercutting their ability to thrive.

On April 10 National Youth HIV Awareness Day, I want folks to remember that in U.S. there was an estimated 21 percent increase in HIV incidence in people aged 13-29 from 2006 to 2009. This increase was driven by a 34 percent increase in HIV incidence in young MSM — the only group to experience a significant increase in incidence in this age range.

We know that youth and young adults are the heart of the today’s epidemic… We also know that youth and young adults can, with the right information, make health decisions about their bodies. We’ve seen what access to contraception for young women has done in terms of engagement in health care. When systems are built to support the efforts of young people, young people use them to make a difference in their lives.

It means we need to better support these young people with options. Making sure they know how to and are able to reach their health potential. Youth and young adults are rising up all over this country to take on the fight to end to this epidemic. Part of supporting that effort means not limiting their options. We need to offer access to a full array of prevention choices and educate our younger brothers. To be empowered to make decisions that will help to end this epidemic.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends: An Advocacy Forum Discussion on “Injectable Prevention”

Ntando Yola has worked for eight years in HIV prevention research at the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation (DTHF) in Cape Town. In his role as a Community Engagement Coordinator he has worked closely with various national and international HIV prevention Networks. His work has involved working with various community stakeholders, developing and implementing community education programmes, forming partnerships with health service providers and other community based organizations as key stakeholders HIV prevention research. He was also a 2013 AVAC Fellow.

At the 2015 AVAC Partners’ Forum, there was a lot of interest in advocates and activists about the important role scientific research has to play in addressing HIV. How important was it? So important that at a roundtable discussion that started after the day was scheduled to end, a small but dedicated group of participants spent over an hour talking about the current pipeline of “injectable prevention” which includes long acting injectable PrEP (I am currently working at DTHF in Cape Town, where an LAI PrEP trial is getting underway), vaccine trials and, someday, passive immunization (right now these antibodies can only be administered via a three-hour transfusion, as we learned at an incredibly accessible presentation by self-described “lab rat’ Penny Moore).

It was clear from this “after hours” discussion that, whilst the focus of community involvement primarily by researchers is within trial communities, there is a need for basic concepts of research and processes to be understood by these broader groups. Addressing this as a gap can go a long way into creating an even more supportive environment for trials and research. Since when civil society understands core concepts and questions related to biomedical research, they are more likely to engage, inform and participate. This would further ensure a natural progression of successful science to real life public health policy and implementation. Whilst globally, initiatives by organizations like AVAC seek to address this, strong and sustained partnerships between science and civil society with countries remain a lingering question as to how this should happen and whose responsibility it is.

I developed a slide set that summarized the pipeline we grappled with and some of the key findings and suggestions that came out of this meeting. There were more questions than answers, as you’ll see. If you want to learn more, raise new questions—or get involved in providing some answers—please be in touch!

Prevention on the Line Webinar Series

AVAC is putting together a year-long series of web-based dialogues focused on HIV prevention research and implementation. This series, HIV Prevention on the Line, will delve into issues raised in our recent AVAC Report and engage with issues and priorities that emerge over the course of the year.

Slides, audio and animations from the first set of webinars are available below. Stay tuned to this page, or subscribe to our Advocates Network newsletter, for details on future webinars.

Vaccines in Vivo: Advances in AIDS Vaccine Research
This year brought the launch of long-awaited initiation of clinical trials building on positive results from the RV144 “Thai” trial. This effort is led by the Pox-Protein Public-Private Partnership (P5), including the the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, who joined the webinar to provide a status update of their current vaccine research and development program. We also featured Janssen, part of Johnson & Johnson, to provide an overview of the research program they are moving forward that focuses on a cross-clade vaccine product.

May 18, 2015 — Downloads: Slides (PDF) / Audio (MP3) / Animation (Flash)

New Frontiers in HIV Prevention, Treatment and Cure: An advocate’s webinar on passive immunization
This webinar focused on “passive immunization”—a scientific term for an expanding area of research that’s highly relevant to treatment, prevention and cure work. There are trials in humans happening in many regions of the world—and data are beginning to come in that advocates need to understand, analyze and consider.

This hour-long webinar featured Dr. Sarah Schlesinger (Rockefeller University) who provided an overview of recent developments across the field including new data from Rockefeller.

April 21, 2015 — Downloads: Slides (PDF) / Audio (MP3) / Animation (Flash)

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.

March 12, 2015 — Downloads: Slides (PDF) / Audio (MP3) / Animation (Flash)

Follow the Money: Knowns and unknowns when it comes to cash transfers and financial incentives to improve health in people living with and/or at risk of HIV
This webinar featured Wafaa El-Sadr, principal investigator of HPTN 065, which evaluated the use of cash incentives in improving outcomes for people living with HIV in the United States.

March 11, 2015 — Downloads: Slides (PDF) / Audio (MP3) / Animation (Flash)

After FACTS: What’s next for HIV prevention in women?
Helen Rees, principal investigator of the FACTS 001 microbicide trial of vaginal 1% tenofovir gel, spoke of their findings of no evidence of protection overall associated with the vaginal gel. Jared Baeten, co-chair of Partners PrEP, discussed the Partners Demonstration Project finding that serodiscordant couples using oral PrEP and/or ART had ver low levels of HIV transmission. We discussed what these and other data meant for women, including young and adolescent girls.

March 9, 2015 — Downloads: Slides (PDF) / Audio (MP3)