[UPDATE: Slides and recordings from both webinars are now available. Links are provided below.]

This week, AVAC is hosting two webinars, each bringing focus to different challenges facing HIV prevention right now.

First up is Tuesday’s webinar, May 21, 9-10:30 EDT, Breaking the Cycle of Transmission: Increasing uptake and effective use of HIV prevention among high-risk adolescent girls and young women in South Africa—quantitative findings & segmentation. Recording available.

Presented by the HIV Prevention Market Manager, this webinar is the second in a series presenting findings from research on what encourages or discourages the effective use of HIV prevention among adolescent girls and young women. Check out the first webinar in the multi-part series, which covered the qualitative results.

Next up, on Thursday, May 23, 9-10am EDT is The Growing Epidemic of Vaccine Hesitancy and the Implications for Global Health. Recording available.

Join us to hear Heidi Larson, the Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene discuss what is called vaccine hesitancy and its implications across global health. We’ll also be joined by Laura Lopez Gonzalez, deputy editor at Bhekisisa, a health journalism center of the Mail & Guardian newspaper in South Africa. They’ll share perspectives on broader vaccine issues that impact the AIDS response as they play out in the media.

Bring your questions and join the conversation!

And if you missed it, check out last week’s HVAD webinar on HIV vaccine science and advocacy priorities. Download the slides and recording here.

This HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, AVAC has an updated toolkit of resources for translating HIV vaccine research with a renewed sense of urgency, and two dedicated hashtags to rally the call on social media: #HIVvaccineAware and #HVAD2019. We hope you’ll join the conversation — with the updated HVAD 2019 toolkit and our upcoming webinars!

Mitchell Warren is Executive Director of AVAC. This post first appeared in Science Speaks.

This year’s annual HIV Vaccine Awareness Day arrives Saturday at a promising and also perilous time for vaccines.

On one hand, multiple vaccine candidates that might protect against HIV are advancing in large clinical trials. Thanks to an extraordinary global commitment and US government investment, two large-scale studies testing different HIV vaccines are underway in Africa, and a third trial is slated to start soon in the Americas and Europe. Simultaneously, researchers are advancing other promising approaches in the lab, such as those that harness powerful anti-HIV antibodies to protect against the virus.

This golden age of vaccines is not limited to HIV. Infants in three African countries will soon receive a vaccine designed to reduce malaria — a disease that kills one child every 30 seconds, according to UNICEF. A vaccine to prevent pulmonary tuberculosis in adults may soon advance to a large-scale trial and could become a central component of strategies to contain this life-threatening disease that, when left untreated, kills half the patients it affects. And an experimental Ebola vaccine is being deployed with urgency to stop a growing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Vaccines have changed our lives in fundamental ways. In many parts of the world, vaccine-preventable diseases that terrified our parents and grandparents are dim memories today. But vaccines are not simple products. Many have challenges. Some are hard to manufacture; some only provide temporary or partial protection. Improving vaccines, using them effectively, educating potential users and ensuring that vaccines reach those in need all require public support and engagement.

Today, however, a rising global tide of anti-vaccine misinformation and sentiment is challenging that informed engagement — with potentially deadly results. Anti-vaccine fervor, based on discredited pseudo-science and too often endorsed by religious, government or community leaders, has led to the resurgence of diseases, such as the current — and completely preventable — measles outbreak, that were once considered conquered.

The implications of the anti-vaccination movement are enormous. Just as vaccines against some of the greatest global killers finally come within reach, fear and misinformation could diminish vital commitments to continued vaccine research, and important investments in vaccine education and delivery. Effective vaccines might not get developed, manufactured, distributed or used due to misguided, anti-vaccine sentiment — potentially putting millions of people at risk for entirely preventable deaths and diseases.

In the case of HIV, a faltering commitment to a vaccine would be devastating. Even with highly effective treatment and a daily prevention pill (known as PrEP) that can reduce HIV infections by more than 95%, nearly 2 million people still become infected with HIV each year. In the United States, a government pledge to end the domestic epidemic must confront the reality of an HIV infection rate that has barely changed since 2013. And in many parts of the world, new HIV infection rates, especially among vulnerable and marginalized populations, are actually rising rather than falling. All of these statistics point to one undeniable truth: we have made important progress against HIV, but this epidemic will not end without a vaccine.

In labs around the world, vaccine researchers are doing what we’ve asked them to do…making unprecedented progress against some of the most complex pathogens ever targeted.

Now, we must all leverage that scientific progress to rebuild a vital component of public health – faith in and support for vaccines. New vaccines in development present the greatest opportunity to save lives in human history. We cannot allow that opportunity slip away due to indifference, neglect or misinformation.

This HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, it’s time for a renewed global commitment to vaccine research, development and delivery. Vaccines save lives today, and a new generation of vaccines can save even more lives tomorrow.

[UPDATE: Slides and recordings from both webinars are now available at www.avac.org/hvad.]

The field is on the brink of yet another HIV Vaccine Awareness Day – next Saturday, May 18. To mark the day, we hope you will join us for webinars on May 16 and on May 23 to explore the two themes at the top of our minds here at AVAC this HVAD.

First, of course, we’re excited by the momentum and promise in HIV vaccine research. Three HIV vaccine efficacy trial programs are now underway, including, for the first time in our field, a potential path to licensure of a vaccine.

On the other hand, we’re alarmed and disheartened by a global rise in what is sometimes called vaccine hesitancy, marked by measles outbreaks and a comeback of a disease almost eradicated through a vaccine.

On Thursday, May 16, 9am ET, Mary Marovich, the Director of the Vaccine Research Program at the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and long-time HIV vaccine research advocate and community leader, Mark Hubbard, will provide their perspectives on the current vaccine landscape, the advocacy priorities and what should be on all of our minds as this exciting science progresses. Register here.

On Thursday, May 23, 9am ET, Heidi Larson, the Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene will discuss vaccine hesitancy and its implications across global health. We’ll also be joined by colleagues at Bhekisisa, the health journalism center of the Mail & Guardian newspaper in South Africa, who will share perspectives on broader vaccine issues, especially as they play out in the media and affect the AIDS response. Register here.

Finally, watch this space! In the coming days, AVAC will provide you with our annual HVAD Toolkit of up-to-date materials and infographics to help translate HIV vaccine research in 2019 – and prepare for the future. If you need any of these ahead of time, please reach out!

Daisy is Communications Advisor, AVAC, and based in Kenya. Chilufya is a passionate advocate for biomedical HIV prevention and research and alumnus of the AVAC Fellows program.

What does the “HVTN” in HVTN 702 stand for? And why do some trials, such as the mosaic vaccine trial HVTN705/HPX2008, carry two interchangeable tags? Also, what’s a mosaic vaccine, and why was it developed? Where are the studies happening, and when can we expect results?

Research literacy for HIV prevention advocates involves clarifying these types of questions. Current and accurate knowledge about clinical trials allows an advocate to engage confidently in the clinical trial ecosystem, which includes researchers, communities, ethics boards, and even funders. A recent gathering was a reminder of how effective it can be to conduct these sessions in an informal, low-tech setting, to invest in their knowledge of HIV prevention science.

At an early evening gathering in February, AVAC staffers joined a group of 20 advocates in Lusaka, Zambia for a research literacy session on HIV vaccines, in particular the three HIV vaccine efficacy trials planned or underway in Africa: HVTN 702, HVTN 705/HPX 2008, and the PrEPVacc trial.

Gathered together around a table in the relaxed restaurant environment of a Lusaka hotel, with snacks in hand, attendees turned to paper handouts (no tech) and gave their attention to the two-hour training. The session covered a basic introduction to vaccine science and the research process, the naming of the clinical trials, trial populations and study timelines. Attendees delved into the composition of HIV vaccines, posed questions, and learned things like how various vectors deliver immunogens, often with adjuvants added to improve the body’s immune response to a candidate vaccine.

The group discussed why it’s been so challenging to develop a highly efficacious HIV vaccine, and the exciting work in the field of broadly neutralizing antibodies, or bNAbs for short. Interaction, questions, answers, and some digressions—the group detoured into a conversation about why young women in East and Southern Africa are especially vulnerable to HIV—all of which encouraged vibrant engagement with the material.

In addition to the science, discussions included a look at other issues relevant to clinical trials for HIV prevention. Advocates in Africa play a critical role in two key areas: pushing their governments to allocate more resources for research, and helping community stakeholders understand increasingly complex trial designs.

Participants declared the after-hours session a hit. They found the discussion on vaccine research “very informative” and “beneficial and interactive.”

Clever Chilende of the Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign (TALC) said, “The environment was very relaxing and enabled maximum participation!”

Chilende is also a Community Advisory Board member for several HIV prevention clinical trials in Zambia. He said he would use the information gained from the training “to create awareness among our members in the community”, and called for further sessions to “look at how the research sites are engaging with various stakeholders in order to have their buy-in and improve community participation in the process.”

Other topics attendees proposed were: Ethics in research; clinical trials involving adolescents; issues around vaccine-induced seropositivity; research on hormonal contraception and HIV risk; and community preparations for vaccine trials. All participants said “yes!” to attending a similar training in the future, and most of them said community engagement and partnership were cardinal to fostering support for research.

The same week in Lusaka, AVAC staff joined a meeting of Counselor Supervisor Officers (CSOs) working at IAVI-affiliated clinical research centers. This meeting provided an opportunity for a more formal research literacy talk covering HIV prevention trials broadly: vaccines, ARV-based prevention, antibody-mediated prevention, as well as the recently completed Evidence for Contraceptive Options and HIV Outcomes (ECHO) study. The upcoming open-label trials that will assess the use of oral PrEP and dapivirine ring in pregnant women (MTN-042 DELIVER, and MTN-043 B-PROTECTED), as well as the efficacy trials pipeline were discussed.

Dr. William Kilembe, Project Director of Zambia-Emory Research Initiative in Tuberculosis and TB/HIV (ZEHRP), joined both the advocates’ and CSO sessions. ZEHRP is one of the HVTN 705/HPX2008 vaccine trial sites in Zambia, and Dr Kilembe’s contribution grounded the discussion in details about how the study is being conducted, achievements, challenges, and community perceptions.

In case you’re still puzzling over the questions at the top:

• “HVTN” stands for the HIV Vaccine Trial Network, the world’s largest publicly funded multi-disciplinary international collaboration facilitating the development of vaccines to prevent HIV/AIDS. The network collaborates with research institutions in over 30 cities on five continents, and is currently conducting the HIV vaccine efficacy trials HVTN 702 and HVTN 705/HPX2008.
• HVTN 705/HPX2008, a clinical trial also known as Imbokodo, is underway in Malawi, Mozambique South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe, testing a mosaic HIV vaccine candidate designed by the pharmaceuticals company Janssen to protect against the most common variants of HIV. Janssen is also sponsoring the trial, whose double tag simply represents the HIV Vaccine Trials Network’s (HVTN 705) and Janssen’s (HPX2008) naming systems.
• The AVAC infographic: The Years Ahead in Biomedical HIV Prevention, gives a snapshot of HIV prevention efficacy trials, their products, locations, and timelines.

In-person research literacy trainings will continue to be part of AVAC’s regular research translation and advocacy offerings, which include publications, the Px Wire newsletter, primers and fact sheets, infographics, Advocates’ Network updates, webinar series, P-Values blog, Px Pulse podcast, media cafés for science journalists, and a new online learning and networking platform known as Engage!

For opportunities to participate in short trainings in your area, or for assistance in organizing one, contact us at [email protected].