Avac Event

SCOPE Community E-meeting: Developments in PrEP implementation issues

The European AIDS Treatment Group, along with European and local organizations are coming together for a virtual meeting via Zoom e-meeting on Wednesday, May 24 at 6:00 to 7:30 AM ET (12:00 – 13:30 PM CET).

This interactive e-meeting for community educators and advocates will provide an update on the latest developments and issues in PrEP implementation. Participants will learn from each other and discuss community preferences, uptake and access issues, as well as advocacy efforts to overcome policy and financial barriers at local, regional and European level. Live interpretation in English and Russian will be provided. This meeting is part of the SCOPE Project.

Avac Event

Women Deliver 2023

The Women Deliver 2023 Conference (WD2023) will take place in  Kigali, Rwanda  and online from July 17 to July 20.

Women Deliver convenings catalyze conversations with stakeholders from around the world, break barriers, address challenges, and identify opportunities to advance gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), and improve the wellbeing of girls and women, in all their intersecting identities.

Avac Event

IAS (International AIDS Society) 2023

The 12th annual conference of the International AIDS Society (IAS) on HIV science takes place July 23–26 in Brisbane, Australia, and virtually. This year’s conference will offer the latest on vaccine and cure science, research updates on broadly neutralizing antibodies, important discussions on trial design in the era of PrEP, the potential of community-led models of care and the importance of integrating services for HIV and sexual and reproductive health (SRH). AVAC and partners will be there! Read on for an overview.

Just ahead of the conference, UNAIDS released their annual state of the epidemic report, The Path that Ends AIDS. The report charts a path that can end AIDS, and documents important progress, but challenges remain. Among them, global resources for HIV are marking another year of decline. With anti-LGTBQIA+ legal actions increasing in the US and in several African countries and reduced resources, efforts to end the epidemic will fail. See AVAC’s new graphic on the issue.

IAS Resources

  • Use AVAC’s Roadmap to find sessions where prevention, pandemic preparedness and the larger issues of global health equity are in the spotlight. You can download it as a sortable spreadsheet or PDF.
  • Follow events in real time, AVAC will offer comments and updates on Twitter, and our friends at NAM/AIDSMAP will be reporting throughout the conference. Join the conversation using the conference hashtag #IAS2023.

Satellites, Sessions and Panels Featuring AVAC and Partners

All times listed are local in Brisbane, Australia. Click for a time zone converter.

Sunday, July 23

Tuesday, July 25

Wednesday, July 26

Poster Presentations

  • No Data No More: A tool to end the exclusion of trans and gender-diverse people in HIV research
  • Raising New Voices in HIV Cure Research: A review of an advocacy-for-cure academy and grant program
  • The Value of Measuring Outcomes of HIV Advocacy: Utilising a novel and participatory approach for advocacy evaluation
  • HIV Prevention Research & Development Investments 2001-2021: Shifting investment priorities fund innovation in a challenging global health landscape
  • Revolution of Transgender Health Programming: The role of transgender activists in Health programming for Malawi

While many will be gathering in Australia for the IAS conference, the 27th International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research (ISSTDR)is happening in Chicago at the same time – and AVAC will be there, too. Stay tuned for an update later this week for AVAC’s STI Roadmap and dedicated STI conference page. Advocates, implementers and researchers in both fields have much work to do together.

Avac Event

STI & HIV World Congress (ISSTDR) 2023

The STI & HIV World Congress (also known as ISSTDR) kicks off in Chicago, Illinois, USA and AVAC will be there. This is the first major face-to-face meeting of STI & HIV professionals since 2019 and one of the only spaces the global STI community comes together to promote ongoing STI research efforts and exchange information on current investigations. This is also the first time AVAC is attending ISSTDR in hopes of expanding STI advocacy and community engagement.

STI & HIV World Congress Resources 

Visit STIWatch.org, a new resource for the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) community to better understand and advocate for STI vaccine and diagnostics research, development and rollout.

STI & HIV World Congress 2023 Roadmap

Check out some AVAC-featured sessions below.

The STI Prevention Pipeline: Where Are We, and What Will It Take to Move Forward Faster?
Monday, July 24 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM in the Cadmium Room
Join us to explore the current development and implementation stages of STI vaccines and diagnostics and identify ways to accelerate research through advocacy.

Symposium: New Vaccine Approaches to STI Prevention STI Vaccine Acceptance and Equity
Tuesday, July 25 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM in Chicago 6
Join AVAC’s Alison Footman to dive into the topic of STI vaccines and equity as new interventions come into reach.

Setting Up a Remote/Home Testing STI Programme: A Practical Toolkit
Thursday, July 25 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM in Sheraton IV/V Room
Join us to explore the power of remote testing to affordably curb STI acquisitions.

Community Happy Hour 
Monday, July 24, 6:00 to 8:00 PM at Lizzie McNeill’s
Join AVAC and partners for a no frills happy hour for the STI community. All are welcome! 

ISSTDR Advocacy Zone 
Monday, July 24 to Thursday, July 27 at the Exhibit Hall
Visit the Advocacy Zone, a space to ask important questions, connect with fellow STI advocates, and begin to chart next steps in advancing STI R&D.

Avac Event

STD Engage 2023

STD Engage 2023 will take place in-person in New Orleans, Louisiana (US) this year from May 16-18, 2023, with pre-conference events on May 15.

STD Engage is an annual US meeting that brings together state and local sexual health professionals and their community-based partners for cross-jurisdictional collaboration and problem-solving. This conference is hosted by National Coalition of STD Directors.

HIV Prevention Plus Plus: Developing Options that Meet the Full Range of our Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs

Tuesday, April 25 at 9:00 AM–10:30AM ET

Despite a dynamic research and development (R&D) pipeline for prevention products, male and female condoms remain the only multi-purpose prevention technologies (MPTs) currently available. Yet MPTs are an integral part of the HIV prevention advocacy agenda. For decades, advocates have pushed for products to be developed that simultaneously prevent HIV, other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and/or pregnancy.

With a growing number of PrEP options already, what will it take to bring a new MPT to market? A Dual Prevention Pill (DPP – https://www.prepwatch.org/products/dual-prevention-pill/) that prevents both HIV and pregnancy could be just two years away. Looking further upstream, there are over 25 other MPTs in the pipeline (https://www.prepwatch.org/research-pipeline/), including vaginal rings, which would follow in the footsteps of the dapivirine vaginal ring recommended by WHO and recently approved in several countries.

Within this fast-evolving HIV prevention landscape, work is already underway to build a platform to introduce the DPP, which could speed up the rollout of other MPTs. Join us to hear what we’ve learned so far on R&D, marketing, counseling and delivery for MPTs – and to discuss what we can do now to prepare prevention markets to include new MPT options.

Featured Speakers:
Ruth Akulu, ICWEA, AVAC fellow
Barbara Friedland, Population Council
Gregorio Millet, amfAR
Dr. Thesla Palanee-Phillips, Wits RHI
Danielle Resar, Clinton Health Access Initiative
Co-moderators: Wawira Nyagah, AVAC Kate Segal, AVAC

Recording / Slides / Resources

Avac Event

AIDSImpact Conference

June 12 to 14, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and other ongoing conflicts in the world, have globally disrupted health services and affected treatment and psychosocial care of people living with HIV.

HIV prevention including HIV testing has also been negatively affected.
In order to ensure that HIV continues to feature on the worldwide agenda, focus and determination will be required.

The theme of the AIDSImpact 2023 is therefore. Power for Action Now!

Registration and more details here.

AVAC at the 2023 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit

The Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit, now in its seventh year, will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 11-12. This annual meeting focuses on biomedical interventions for treatment and prevention of HIV and approaches to implementation of these tools to end the epidemic.

This year’s theme highlights the role of sex and pleasure and includes a plenary featuring advocacy to right the wrongs of a failed US federal PrEP response with a US National PrEP Program.

AVAC and partners are involved in a number of sessions and activities; scroll down for information on these and click here to check out the full conference agenda.

And finally, be sure to follow our Twitter feed, @HIVpxresearch, Tuesday, April 11, when our Senior Program Manager for Policy, John Meade Jr., takes it over to report on the meeting live from Las Vegas.

AVAC and Partners at the Biomedical Prevention Summit

Tuesday, April 11:

10:30 to 12:00 PM PDT: No Data No More: A research scorecard for transgender inclusion
Session 1 Workshop
If we are to end the epidemic, we need biomedical research data that are representative of transgender communities. AVAC has designed a Scorecard tool with which to hold researchers accountable for the meaningful inclusion of transgender people in all HIV clinical trials. Join this session to learn how milestone HIV studies from 1991-the present have scored on transgender inclusion—and how you can ensure “No Data No More.”

4:30 to 6:00 PM EDT: Long-Acting Injectables: Revolutionary prevention drugs require revolutionary adaptations in delivery
Session 3 Workshop
Current delivery models for longer-acting injectable (LAI) PrEP require consumers to travel to outpatient settings and be seen by providers qualified to deliver injections. Yet, many providers serving HIV-impacted populations do not have sufficient capacity to offer LAI PrEP at the volume necessary to end the epidemic. Additionally, structural barriers and serious inequities within the United States healthcare system prevent many from engaging in HIV prevention. This workshop will explore how the HIV prevention community can draw lessons from other fields to successfully develop, advocate for, and implement alternative delivery models for LAI to increase access, and realize the promise of these revolutionary interventions.

4:30 to 6:00 PM PDT: PrEP in Black America: An equity movement in HIV prevention
Session 3 Workshop
Black people in the US bear a disproportionate burden of HIV, representing approximately 13 percent of the population while comprising more than 40 percent of incident HIV diagnoses in 2019. Despite this, biomedical HIV prevention tools remain underutilized by Black people and more than 90 percent of those who can benefit from PrEP have not been prescribed PrEP. The PrEP in Black America Summit (PIBA) was convened by a cadre of Black HIV activists, advocates, leaders, and public health professionals to address these frustrating factors on the 10th anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the first medication for biomedical HIV prevention. Summit leaders gathered more than 150 individuals, in person and virtual, in the spirit of confronting the historical injustices and race-based discrimination that continue to drive HIV and other sexual health inequities experienced by Black communities to develop a Black-focused agenda or “roadmap” for HIV prevention.

Wednesday, April 12:

10:30 to 12:00 PM PDT: CAB 4 PrEP: Opportunity for advancing equity and improving access
Session 4 Workshop
Injectable PrEP uptake in the US has the potential to reduce HIV infections, but only if its introduction can address the impediments to its implementation. Participants will engage with panelists that have experience with injectable cabotegravir in this workshop.

hivresourcetracking.org

The most up-to-date and comprehensive field-wide estimates for HIV prevention and R&D globally.

In its 16th annual report, the Resource Tracking for HIV Prevention Research & Development Working Group documents research and development spending for the calendar year 2020 and analyzes funding trends spanning twenty years.

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