This case study by 2010 AVAC Advocacy Fellow Richard Hasunira assesses the community engagement efforts of the Masaka trial site through interviews with participants, trial staff, and other stakeholders. It highlights success that other trials should replicate and lessons learned from shortcomings.
Community Involvement in HIV Prevention Research: Experiences and perceptions of communities participating in the MDP 301 microbicide trial in Masaka, Uganda
MUWRP/AVAC: Biomedical HIV Prevention Research Stakeholder Training Resource
This manual, developed by 2010 AVAC Advocacy Fellow Jauhara Nanyondo, is an HIV prevention literacy tool intended to improve reporting by Ugandan media. It covers background information on HIV, provides an overview of existing and emerging prevention options, and discusses clinical research process and ethics.
2005 AVAC Report: AIDS Vaccines at the Crossroads
This year’s Report offers recommendations for the field in general, the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, policy makers, researchers and communities. Some of these recommendations will be familiar because AVAC has made them before, and they are reiterated because it is AVAC’s belief that they are still needed. The Report also provides an update on tenofovir pre-exposure prophylaxis research.
2004 AVAC Report: AIDS Vaccine Trials: Getting the Global House in Order
This year’s Report focuses on how the field is readying itself for the road ahead. Several chapters address different aspects of “readiness”—a term that means different things to different people, but that is at the heart of the AIDS vaccine advocacy agenda today.
2013 AVAC Report: Research and Reality
Research & Reality calls on funders and researchers to capitalize on lessons learned from a range of recent HIV prevention trials via better problem solving, more critical thinking and coordinated action. This year’s AVAC Report identifies progress and gaps in large-scale human trials, rollout of proven options and ongoing research for new advances that women and men will want to use.
2012 AVAC Report: Achieving the End—One Year and Counting
AVAC Report 2012, Achieving the End—One Year and Counting, sets a clock on the global drive to end the AIDS epidemic. The past twelve months have seen remarkable global consensus that it is possible to begin to end the epidemic. The same time period has seen concepts like “combination prevention” and “treatment as prevention” capture the world’s attention. But without specific interim goals—and far more precision about what combination prevention and other key concepts mean—the lofty goal of ending the epidemic will not be achieved.
2011 AVAC Report: The End?
The AVAC Report 2011, The End?, lays out a three-part, science-based agenda for ending the AIDS epidemic in our lifetimes. It synthesizes the actions need across the spectrum of existing, emerging and long-term biomedical HIV prevention tools that could change the AIDS response forever. This year’s Report also introduces the AVAC “Playbook” which is a new strategic document identifying global and organizational priorities for the year 2012.
2010 AVAC Report: Turning the Page
The AVAC 2010 Report, Turning the Page, highlights that the biomedical prevention field is entering the next chapter of its development. The past year brought the first evidence, from the Thai Prime-Boost trial, that an AIDS vaccine could prevent HIV in humans, as well as significant preclinical findings around potent, HIV-specific neutralizing antibodies.
At the same time, two microbicide trials testing the candidate PRO 2000 yielded seemingly different, but ultimately disappointing results, and the field now prepares for the release of results from CAPRISA 004, the first ARV-based microbicide effectiveness trial.
2009 AVAC Report: Piecing Together the HIV Prevention Puzzle
The 2009 AVAC Report, Piecing Together the HIV Prevention Puzzle, took inspiration from a quotation in the 2006-2008 review of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery, which states that the ultimate goal “is to develop a vaccine that prevents HIV infection or disease, anything less than that can be characterized as progress, but not success.”
The first section of the Report, “Puzzling Out Progress,” reports on the AIDS vaccine field, where there’s an energized focus on discovery, innovation, and basic science. The second section, “Puzzling Out Success,” turns to the implications of PrEP and other strategies in efficacy trials today. Throughout, it is argued that success will depend on combination approaches: on research plus implementation; on vaccines plus PrEP, should either show benefit; and on communities plus researchers working towards common goals.
2008 AVAC Report: The Search Must Continue
The 2008 AVAC Report, The Search Must Continue, provides a comprehensive review of recent developments in AIDS vaccine research. It explores the issues that have been raised in the wake of the failure of Merck’s vaccine candidate and provides context for the events and major changes of the last year in HIV prevention research.