To mark the launch of Essential Principles & Practices for GPP Compliance: Engaging stakeholders in biomedical research during the era of COVID-19, AVAC hosted a webinar on April 1st. Bartholomew Wilson from the Partnership for Research on Vaccines and Infectious Diseases in Liberia discussed his publication in Nature Medicine on GPP in pandemic research. This was followed by a panel discussion with Danielle Campbell (UCLA) and Miliswa Magongo (Wits RHI) highlighting diverse perspectives on the importance of GPP within COVID-research and beyond.

Watch the recording.

The High-Level Meeting on AIDS took place between June 8-10, 2021. The high-level meeting reviewed the progress made in reducing the impact of HIV since the last United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting on HIV and AIDS in 2016 and the General Assembly adopted a new political declaration to guide the future direction of the response.

HIV Prevention at HLM 2021

• Statement on Adoption of the Political Declaration at the 2021 High Level Meeting
  On June 8th, the General Assembly adopted a Political Declaration that sets important targets and goals in many areas for the next five years but still left work to be done. In the strong words of the US mission “[t]he text we are adopting today, lacks the ambition needed to meet the stated goals of this high-level meeting—ending inequalities and ending AIDS.”

  These concerns are also heard from civil society who find it unacceptable that the Political Declaration does not address the harmful and hateful effect of state criminalization of behaviors or practices. The statement signed by 80 organizations and advocates also presses for greater civil society involvement in the implementation and monitoring of HIV services in their communities.

• No Prevention, No End; The importance of HIV prevention – How Leadership can turn an epidemic

  Excerpts from the HIV prevention meeting from the 2021 High Level Meeting on AIDS — including Mitchell Warren, Joyce Ouma, and Dr. Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi. View the full event here.

• UN 5th High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS: Civil society says “Yes — AND” to the 2021 political declaration
  AVAC’s Maureen Luba Milambe writes in Science Speaks about the Political Declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly, the issues surrounding it, how a number of organizations and activists have spoken out about it and how their responses represent a community amendment to the declaration.

Side Events of Interest

• Science, HIV and Covid-19 – Where are we headed?
  June 7, 2021 from 8:00-9:30am ET
  In this side-event, Jon Cohen, a leading science journalist, engaged leaders in global science with specific questions and moderate a panel discussion before inviting questions and comments from the audience and other participants.

• No Prevention, No End: The importance of Leadership for HIV prevention – How decisions can turn an epidemic

  June 8, 2021 from 8:00-9:30am ET

  This side event reinforced the urgent need for leadership to foster and drive decisive action to get back on track to achieve the HIV prevention targets by 2030. Examples were given where leadership on prevention has moved the needle in the HIV response and address resilience for HIV prevention programmes alongside the intersecting COVID-19 epidemic responses. Click for the flyer. And the recording is available.

• Facts of Life: Youth, sexuality & HIV

  June 10, 2021 from 8:00-9:30am ET

  This event included a lively debate between young people, government representative and experts on what’s working, what isn’t and why in securing young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. Download the flyer. Watch a recording.

Follow Along on Social Media

For AVAC’s take, follow @hivpxresearch. For the larger conversation, follow #HLM2021AIDS.

Jon Cohen is an Emmy Award-winning science journalist and a staff writer with Science. He has authored four non-fiction books and several articles that have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, Smithsonian and many other publications. He has extensively worked in the areas of bio-medicine, HIV/AIDS, vaccines and global health. On November 22, 2019 he joined other journalists to discuss the challenges and opportunities of being a health and science reporter.

Watch a recording.

Eliminating TB by 2030—the timeframe set by United Nations member states—will not be possible without developing and introducing new TB vaccines. Decades of investments in TB vaccine research and development are starting to pay off — listen to the webinar recording to learn about the latest in TB vaccine research and discuss next steps based on recent results!

On Thursday, February 6, Treatment Action Group (TAG) and AVAC conducted a webinar featuring an update on recent vaccine results and possible next steps with M72/AS01E, one of several new TB vaccine candidates.

The TB vaccine field has been buzzing in 2020, with at least two Phase II trials reporting positive results in the past two years and several other trials either underway or close to finishing. Of particular interest, the positive finding in a Phase IIb trial of TB vaccine candidate M72/AS01E provided 50 percent protection against developing TB disease in HIV-negative adults with TB infection. The Phase IIb trial of this candidate vaccine was sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline (which developed it) and funded by GSK and Aeras (now IAVI).

This webinar featured Dereck Tait from IAVI who presented an overview of the M72/AS01E Phase IIb trial results, Johan Vekemans from the World Health Organization (WHO) who summarized a series of WHO-hosted consultations on the path forward for M72/AS01E’s development and possible licensure, and Penny Heaton from the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute (GMRI) who discussed the recently announced agreement on M72/AS01E between GSK and the GMRI.

Presentations by:

• Johan Vekemans | World Health Organization, Initiative for Vaccine Research, Geneva, Switzerland
• Dereck Tait | IAVI, TB Program, Cape Town, South Africa
• Penny Heaton | Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute, Boston, United States

Q&A and discussion moderated by:

• Mike Frick | TAG, TB Project co-director
• Stacey Hannah | AVAC, Director of Research Engagement

Recording and Slides: YouTube / Mike Frick’s slides / Johan Vekemans’ slides

If you’re looking for other information, here are some useful resources:

• WHO’s Q&A on the investigational vaccine candidate M72/AS01E
• Final Analysis of a Trial of M72/AS01E Vaccine to Prevent Tuberculosis, published in the New England Journal of Medicine
• TAG’s 2019 TB Vaccine Pipeline Report

In early July, the world’s largest gathering on HIV/AIDS went virtual for the first time. AIDS 2020:Virtual, the 23rd edition of the International AIDS Conference, offered the latest scientific breakthroughs on HIV, opportunities for advocates to come together to sharpen their agenda and new to this year, a special day-long meeting devoted to COVID-19. Read on for our highlights of AIDS 2020 Virtual and be sure to check out our recent blog The View from AIDS 2020 Virtual – AVAC’s Take.

Program Highlights

• The Research Literacy Networking Zone (RLNZ) in the Global Village
• Ending the HIV Epidemic: Optimism, realism and disparities
• How did they do it? What successful communities can teach all of us about making dramatic progress against HIV epidemics and what this means in the age of COVID
• Bound But Not Gagged: Resilience in the era of the global gag rule

AVAC’s Research Literacy Zone

AVAC’s Research Literacy Zone (RLZN) featured resources on biomedical interventions, the clinical trial process, advocacy for the integration of sexual reproductive health with HIV prevention and treatment, and the impact of HIV and COVID-19 on each other. The RLZN also featured a series of virtual conversation and Q&As with leading researchers and advocates. Click to download the chat recordings below!

Research Literacy Networking Zone Pop-Up Chats

• A Conversation About HIV Cure Research
  
  Led by Thumbi N’dung’u, Africa Health Research Institute

• A Look at the Broadly Neutralizing Antibody Pipeline: What happens after AMP results?
  Led by Devin Sok & Olayinka Fagbayi, IAVI

• Do Africans Need COVID-19 Research? A Conversation with Advocates and Researchers
  Moderated by Ntando Yola, APHA & Nandsile Luthuli, AVAC
  Panelists: Dr. Kathy Mngadi, Aurum Institute, Dr. Sherman Padayachee, Setshabsa Research Centre, Xolani Mndaweni, Deputy Co-Chair of Klerksdrop CAB, Former Participant

• Advocates Reflect on the Latest UNAIDS Report: What does it mean for research and access?
  
  Moderated by Micheal Ighodaro, AVAC
  

• A Conversation About Long-Acting PrEP for Cisgender Women
  Led by Sinead Delany-Moretlwe, Wits RHI

• A Conversation About Long-Acting PrEP for MSM & Transgender Women
  Led by Raphael Landovitz, UCLA

• A Conversation with Advocates on Preparing for AMP Trial Results
  Led by Shelly Karuna, Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center

On Demand-Only Sessions

Symposia and Bridging Session, On-Demand Channel
Ending the HIV Epidemic: Optimism, realism and disparities. Listen to hear four perspectives on where we are and where we should go as we aim to end the HIV epidemic around the world. Speakers presented four distinct perspectives, each speaking across geographies and populations.

Symposia and Bridging Session, On-Demand Channel
How did they do it? What successful communities can teach all of us about making dramatic progress against HIV epidemics and what this means in the age of COVID. Cities, regions and countries around the world have brought down HIV incidence and mortality. How did they do it? Last year, amfAR, AVAC and Friends of the Global Fight, in partnership with Kaiser Family Foundation, released a report, Translating Progress Into Success to End the AIDS Epidemic, looking at success stories. In this session, advocates and researchers from these case studies discussed how to apply the lessons they learned to advocacy and policy.

Symposia and Bridging Session, On-Demand Channel
Bound But Not Gagged: Resilience in the era of the global gag rule. Listen to learn about the impact of the global gag rule and the domestic (US) gag rule on women and girls around the world, including key populations and how they have responded.

On-Demand Posters

• How policy affects practice: policy barriers to provision of HIV biomedical prevention services in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Transnational activism for an effective, comprehensive HIV response: Lessons from the coalition to mobilize power activism, strategy, solidarity (COMPASS) Africa
• Advocates’ perspectives on next-generation HIV prevention trial design
• Understanding ‘silenced health experiences’ of young people accessing HIV services through Body-Map Storytelling