WHO and partners will convene to launch the Lancet Global health series: Shaping the Future of Clinical Trials. Details and registration link below.
Avac Event
WHO-Lancet Global Health Series: Shaping the Future of Clinical Trials
Avac Event
Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights: Moving forward post-the 2024 US Election
Held on March 12, you can view the event recording below.
Featuring:
- Sekai Chikowero, Vice President of Programs, EngenderHealth
- Francine Coeytaux, Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor, Plan C Pills
- Eszter Kismödi, Chief Executive, Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters
- Mitchell Warren, Executive Director, AVAC
Avac Event
State of PEPFAR
Join the Congressional Caucus on Black Women & Girls Co-Chairs Robin Kelly (IL-02), Yvette Clarke (NY-09), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12) and the Global AIDS Policy Partnership for a hybrid briefing discussing the current status of PEPFAR programming, the significant impact PEPFAR has on Black Women globally, and the consequences that follow terminated funding.
Avac Event
CROI 2025 Community Breakfast Meetings
The Community Breakfast Clubs are virtual webinars coordinated by the CROI Community Liaisons, the European AIDS Treatment Group, AVAC, and their global collaborators. They feature researchers and advocates discussing some of the most consequential science being presented at CROI.
Session Recordings
Breaking New Ground: The latest advances in HIV cure
March 10, 2025
AVAC, the CROI Community Liaison Subcommittee and European AIDS Treatment Group hosted the first virtual Community Breakfast Meeting (CBMs) for the 2025 CROI meeting. Speaker details and recording below:
Moderator: Michael Louell, University of Washington-Seattle, Fred Hutch Center for AIDS research
Speakers
- Dr. Katie Bar, University of Pennsylvania, CROI Scientific Program Committee
- Dr. Marina Caskey, Rockerfeller University
- Dr. Steven Deeks, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)
- Ms. Doreen Mora Moracha, HIV Cure Advocate- Kenya, CROI Community Educator Scholar
The End of AIDS — Near and Far? (40 Years of HIV)
March 11, 2025
AVAC, the CROI Community Liaison Subcommittee and European AIDS Treatment Group hosted the second virtual Community Breakfast Clubs (CBCs) for the 2025 CROI meeting. Speaker details and recording below:
Moderator: Grace Kumwenda, AVAC
Speakers:
- Dr. Chris Beyrer, Duke Global Health Institute
- Chilufya Kasanda, Treatment Advocacy and Literacy Campaign – Zambia, CROI Community Educator Scholar
- Dr. Mitch Matoga, UNC, Malawi
Still Here! Living with HIV Long-Term
March 12, 2025
AVAC, the CROI Community Liaison Subcommittee and European AIDS Treatment Group hosted the third and final virtual Community Breakfast Clubs (CBCs) for the 2025 CROI meeting. Speaker details and recording below:
Moderator: Sean Hosein, European AIDS Treatment Group – Canada
Speakers:
- Kennedy Mupeli, Center for Youth of Hope – Botswana, CROI Community Educator Scholar
- Dr. Peter Hunt, University of California San Francisco, CROI Scientific Program Committee
- Dr. Laura Waters, The Mortimer Market Centre – London
Avac Event
Can Africa Finance its Own Non-profit Sector?
The webinar will explore whether shifts in the US government’s funding is a setback or an opportunity to rethink Africa’s reliance on Western aid.
Featuring:
- Angelo Katumba — Senior Program Manager: AVAC
- Yvette Raphael — Executive Director of Advocates for the Prevention of HIV in Africa
- Dr. Michael Kiragu — AICS Associate & Grant Fundraising Expert
Avac Event
The Impact and Implications of Recent US Government Federal Funding Reductions on Health Programmes
The University of the Witwatersrand‘s Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics presented a webinar featuring:
- Mia Malan, founder and editor-in-chief of the Bhekisisa Centre for Health Journalism – an independent media organisation that specialises in narrative, solutions journalism focusing on health and social justice issues across Africa.
- Dr Ntombifikile Nokwethemba Mtshali, Chief Executive Officer of Shout-It-Now, an organisation focused on providing sexual and reproductive health and rights services
to youth in the Gauteng and North-West provinces.
- Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of AVAC – an advocacy organisation focused on accelerating access to effective HIV prevention options and ensuring access to everyone who needs them. Mitchell also worked with Population Services International (PSI) designing and implementing social marketing, communications and health promotion activities, including five years running PSI’s project in South Africa.
Avac Event
The #SaveHIVFunding Campaign: An Urgent Need for Rapid Response
In the summer of 2023, PrEP4All, AVAC, and HIVMA launched the #SaveHIVFunding campaign in response to an unprecedented proposal in the US House of Representatives to cut $767M in federal HIV funding. Securing emergency funds from the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF), Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS (BCEFA), and several national HIV partner organizations, the campaign generated millions of social media impressions through a press conference at the US Capitol, as well as online community mobilization and ad buys. Thousands of letters were sent to Congressional representatives asking that they do whatever they can to save HIV funding.
Ultimately, the defense of these critical programs was successful, and all $767M in proposed cuts were removed from the final FY24 spending bill. For FY25, new cuts were proposed in the House, and PrEP4All, AVAC, and HIVMA relaunched the #SaveHIVFunding campaign. Although we have yet to see the final outcome of our efforts as Congress is still debating funding issues, we have once again partnered with 120 organizations and generated thousands of petition signatures representing all fifty states. Far more of this sort of advocacy–with the capacity to rapidly plan, fund, and deploy responses to urgent threats–will be required in a new political environment that is rapidly changing and hard to predict.
Join Funders Concerned about AIDS for a discussion on the major threats being faced by the HIV field at the federal level, plans to expand the #SaveHIVFunding campaign, and how you can support this work to defend federal funding to end the HIV epidemic.
Facilitator:
Mitchell Warren, Executive Director, AVAC
Panel:
Jenny Collier, Collier Collective
Michael Chancley, Communications and Mobilization Manager, PrEP4All
Noelle Esquire, US Portfolio Lead, Elton John AIDS Foundation
Avac Event
Updates to the PEPFAR Stop-Work Order and the Role of CCM
Join AVAC, COMPASS and other partners to update CCMs on the PEPFAR freeze.
Avac Event
Introducing the Dual Prevention Pill: Lessons Learned and What’s Next for Regulatory, Research, and Rollout
This webinar has been cancelled because funding was pulled by the new US administration. Follow critical developments in US policies and their impact on global health via our new newsletter. Learn more here.
Join the IMPT and guest speakers from AVAC and Population Council for a discussion on the dual prevention pill (DPP)—a single pill that combines oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and oral contraception (OC) to prevent HIV and pregnancy. If approved, the DPP will be the first multi-purpose prevention technology (MPT) to be marketed since condoms.
The discussion will include real-time learnings to inform the broader MPT field on the DPP’s regulatory approval process, acceptability study results in South Africa and Zimbabwe, implementation updates, and lessons learned.
There will be a Q&A session following the presentations.
Avac Event
Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2025
The 32nd annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) that took place from March 9–12 in San Francisco, CA convened researchers, advocates and others under drastically altered circumstances, as the new US Administration’s assault on global health and research devastates the HIV response. Foreign aid programs are frozen, US agencies championing science and global health are being dismantled, and US leadership around the world is receding at a critical moment.
Read our summaries:
View our Community Breakfast Clubs
The CROI Community Liaisons, AVAC and the European AIDS Treatment Group organized a series of daily Community Breakfast Clubs which were open to all. These live webinars featured researchers and advocates exploring some of the most consequential science and discussions from CROI.
Topics included:
- Breaking New Ground: The latest advances in HIV cure
- The End of AIDS — Near and Far? (40 Years of HIV)
- Still Here! Living with HIV Long-Term