Avac Event

Are We PrEPared this Time? Ensuring a Swift Translation of Research into Community Impact

First approved in 2012, roll out of oral PrEP has been slow, uneven, and marked by troubling and unacceptable uptake disparities across race/ethnicity, gender and geography. In 2019, less than 25 percent of people eligible for PrEP in the US received a prescription. Late last year, the US FDA approved a new PrEP agent called Apretude, an injectable, longer-acting PrEP option. While hopes are high for this intervention, it is replete with challenges from both the user as well as the delivery sides of the equation.

The AIDS Foundation Chicago, AVAC and an array of speakers spoke on what must happen to ensure swift translation of positive research results into community impact. What follows are a set of resources from the webinar.

Resources

Recording / Slides

Sign On Letter
Requesting that the Biden administration include in his upcoming budget request $400 million to create a National PrEP Grant Program. Organizations can sign here.

Resources Shared

Avac Event

AIDS 2022

AIDS 2022 logo

The world’s largest conference on HIV/AIDS, AIDS 2022, convened from July 27-August 2 in Montreal, Canada. Hosted by the International AIDS Society, this was 24th session of the conference and the first since the pandemic to offer in-person and virtual access.

AIDS 2022 launched at a pivotal moment in HIV prevention. The ability to deliver two new proven PrEP methods will determine conversations and decisions happening now. These decisions will impact policies and funding for products in the pipeline and programs to deliver what’s available today for HIV prevention. It’s time to sharpen the agenda for HIV prevention and global health equity. AIDS 2022 offered opportunities to engage in these conversations while getting up to date on the latest research, rollout, policy and advocacy.

Below AVAC find resources related to the conference overall and find key sessions on prevention.

For a full roundup from Montreal, read our blog post.

Resources

Posters

Panels, Satellites, Sessions and Workshops Featuring AVAC and Partners

Friday, July 29

  • [Satellite] Next Generation PrEP: Science, policy, and community impact
    18:15-19:45 EDT

    How do clinical trials assess efficacy of new and still-needed experimental products, with highly effective options available to the public? This session explores the need to bring key stakeholders including communities, industry and regulators to questions such as: How do regulators approach groundbreaking new trial designs in HIV prevention? How do these trial designs affect patients in the trials and those that may benefit from candidate drugs?

Saturday, July 30

  • [Symposium] Equitable roll out of health products: What will it take?
    14:15-15:15 EDT

    Discussing innovative strategies, collaborative partnerships and transparent processes that engage advocates, government agencies, policy makers, government and non-governmental funders, regulatory bodies and pharmaceutical companies and result in equitable access to new products, the key to achieving rapid and effective product rollout.

Sunday, July 31

flyer for our next shot workshop

flyer for demand, delivery and data for decision-making meeting

Monday, August 1

decoration banner

Avac Event

2020 United States Conference on HIV/AIDS

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 United States Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA) will take place online Oct. 19-21, 2020. Registration is free for the first 4,000 community/non-profit registrants. And all content will be available online for free after the conference. The Virtual 2020 USCHA will have five plenaries, 60 workshops, 12 institutes, and an Exhibit Hall. New this year will be a Jobs Fair. The new federal resources for the Ending the HIV Epidemic plan means thousands of new jobs. USCHA wants to bring together the people who need jobs with the organizations who receive the new EHE funding. We also want to make sure that the people who get these jobs represent the communities hit hardest by HIV.

Avac Event

Understanding the EMA Opinion: Next Steps for Dapivirine Vaginal Ring

On July 29, AVAC held a webinar Understanding the EMA Opinion: Next Steps for Dapivirine Vaginal Ring for advocates to learn about next steps on the regulatory process and implications for rollout from advocates, International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) and the WHO. We were joined by Zeda Rosenberg, CEO of IPM, Rachel Baggaley from the WHO, Cleopatra Makura, 2019 AVAC Fellow, and Ruth Nahurira, a trial participant.

Recording and Slides: YouTube / Zeda Rosenberg’s Slides

Avac Event

Emergency Global HIV Activist Call

Right now, COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on access to HIV treatment and prevention across the continent. In a matter of days, African countries will reach a grim milestone: the number of COVID-19 cases will surge past 1 million. Many clinics where adults and children get lifesaving HIV treatment have simply shuttered. Medicine supply chains have been disrupted, resulting in life-threatening shortages of drugs.

Activism is needed now to help ensure people living with HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in the world’s poorest countries do not face even greater suffering and death from the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and HIV. Join Health Gap‘s emergency activist organizing call on Tuesday, August 4th at 6PM EST.

Right now, Congress is negotiating an emergency COVID-19 spending package. We need to pressure them to fully fund an emergency response that will mitigate harm from COVID-19 to countries facing the highest burdens of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

Time is running out. in less than 7 days, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will run out of money in its COVID-19 Emergency Response Mechanism, a program established to help countries respond to COVID-19 with testing, case finding and treatment while continuing to scale up AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs. And the US bilateral AIDS program, PEPFAR, is reporting destabilization of their treatment and prevention programs.

In order to stop millions of preventable deaths and avoid massive suffering from COVID-19 as well as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, we need to demand $4 billion for The Global Fund and $1.4 billion for PEPFAR in the COVID-19 emergency supplemental bill before Congress now.

Sign up for Health Gap’s emergency organizing call today.

Avac Event

Learning from Historic Vaccine Research & the Latest on the mRNA-1273 Candidate

On Tuesday, August 25, AVAC held a webinar presentation and discussion with Dr. Barney Graham, the Deputy Director of the NIH’s Vaccine Research Center (VRC). Dr. Graham reviewed the rapid development timeline for COVID-19 vaccines and explored some of the recent and historic vaccine research developments that are being applied to this challenge. He also provided a specific update on the mRNA-1273 vaccine—a vaccine developed by Moderna and the NIH—which is undergoing testing in a Phase III clinical trial launched last month.

Recording and Slides: YouTube / Dr. Graham’s Slides

Avac Event

How COVID-19 is Impacting Africa: A Conversation with the Directors of Africa CDC and WACI Health

On Wednesday, September 16, WACI Health, AVAC, and Friends of the Global Fight Against AIDS, TB and Malaria hosted a virtual dialogue about the impact of COVID-19 in Africa. Panelists included Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control, Rosemary Mburu, Executive Director of WACI Health and Lwazi Mlaba, a Global Fund Champion working in HIV, TB and GBV; a COVID-survivor and the founder of the an African COVID-19 Support group. Dr. Elizabeth Bukusi, Principal Research Officer at KEMRI and Co-Director of the KEMRI-UCSF Infectious Disease Research Training Program and AVAC’s Maureen Luba moderated the converstation. The conversation explored:

  • The status of COVID-19 in Africa and its impact on AIDS, TB and malaria programming.
  • The role of African researchers in the development of COVID-19 therapeutics and vaccines.
  • The role of global donors to support an Africa-led COVID-19 response.

Watch the recording of the conversation here.

Avac Event

Advocates’ Strategy Call to Prepare for the October 22 US FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee Meeting

With multiple COVID vaccine candidates in late-stage trials, the growing politicization of the process, and, especially the growing concerns and mistrust, now is a particularly important time to engage in the regulatory process. Detailed guidance for COVID vaccine developers, issued by US FDA in June, provides a roadmap for advocates to monitor and evaluate the vaccine approval process, and AVAC recently put out this primer on the process, highlighting the upcoming VRBPAC meeting on October 22.

Please join AVAC and TAG on Wednesday, Sept 30th at 5pm ET for a strategy call to prepare for the October 22 FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee meeting. Access the call here.

We’ll be joined by Josh Sharfstein – now at Johns Hopkins and a former Principal Deputy Commissioner of the FDA – who will walk is through the FDA process, engage in discussion about how best to engage with the VRBPAC process, and provide thoughts on what we all might prioritize and highlight. Written submissions to the FDA are due on Oct 15 and requests to present at the meeting are due on Oct 7.

Avac Event

HPTN 084 Primary Study Results Webinar

The HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) hosted a community webinar to discuss the primary results of HPTN 084, a randomized, double-blind controlled trial designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB LA) to prevent the sexual acquisition of HIV in cisgender women in sub-Saharan Africa.

Participants

  • Sinead Delany-Moretlwe, MBBCh, Ph.D., DTM&H
    HPTN 084 Protocol Chair
    Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Insitute,
    University of the Witswatersrand
  • Mina Hosseinipour, MD, MPH
    HPTN 084 Protocol Co-Chair
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine,
    UNC Project-Malawi

View the recording.

Avac Event

Paving the way for an HIV cure: Introducing Target Product Profiles (TPP) and the HIV Cure Africa Acceleration Partnership (HCAAP)

On Tuesday, December 8 at 11am ET, the International AIDS Society’s Towards an HIV Cure initiative is hosting a webinar, Paving the way for an HIV cure: Introducing Target Product Profiles (TPP) and the HIV Cure Africa Acceleration Partnership (HCAAP), to unpack two new articles just published in The Lancet HIV.

REGISTER HERE.

The articles argue why now is the time to focus on advancing HIV cure research. Outputs of a 2019 meeting of global stakeholders, these articles—The case for an HIV cure and how to get there and Multi Stakeholder Consensus on a Target Product Profile for an HIV Cure—make the case for the role an HIV cure can play in ending the epidemic, and share a roadmap to get there, including the role of community advocates.

As described in the articles and to be discussed on next week’s webinar, there is a need now for community advocates to provide input on acceptability of potential cure interventions, help to shape the policy environment, and enhance the capacity needed for cure trials, such as robust HIV and viral load testing. To that end, the proposed HCAAP plans to coordinate key stakeholders (e.g., regulators, funders, civil society, Ministries Of Health, researchers, etc.) across the public and private sectors to drive the development of a community-led cure research agenda and speed up access to a potential strategy in the future.