Global Solidarity, Shared Responsibility
World AIDS Day 2020 is a historic one as we confront the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its profound impact on existing efforts to control and eradicate HIV/AIDS. According to UNAIDS, severe disruptions from COVID-19 threaten to derail the global HIV response by 10 years or more if urgent action isn’t taken to protect progress. This year, we join the global community’s call to action of “Global Solidarity, Shared Responsibility”, as we bring you perspectives from across the HIV community to keep our eyes on the target and demand globally accessible HIV prevention tools to end the HIV epidemic.
Check out our campaign below and mark your calendars to join in!
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#VoiceADay campaign (Wed Nov 25 – Tue Dec 01)
To truly ensure globally accessible tools to end the HIV epidemic we must empower and include the voices of the global HIV community, including people living with HIV (PLHIV), activists, and scientists. This #WAD, we bring you the #VoiceADay campaign. Each day leading up to WAD we will be sharing the perspective of a different global HIV community member on social media. You can find the tweets and graphics throughout this toolkit. Don’t forget to share!
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#TwitterTakeover (Tue Dec 01)
We are excited to introduce Winifred Ikilai (@raelwyne), an AVAC Advocacy Fellow 2020, who will be leading a #TwitterTakeover with IAVI on Tuesday 01 December for World AIDS Day.
Winifred strives to empower communities to demand and access quality health services, including biomedical HIV interventions such as those being developed by IAVI and our partners. Throughout the day, Winifred will be sharing a community perspective on the need to ensure globally accessible HIV prevention tools.
Explore the toolkit below to learn more and participate in IAVI’s #WAD campaign!
Background photo: Community Advisory Board (CAB) in Kenya (Sokomoto Photography, 2011)
#EyesOnTheTarget: HIV prevention at the forefront
HIV prevention must take center stage if we are to control the epidemic and end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. In response, Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS, assured the global HIV community at the ministerial meeting of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition in November that HIV prevention will be prominent in the next Global AIDS Strategy, slated for release in March 2021.
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#EyesOnTheTarget serves as a call to maintain the focus on HIV prevention research amid the ongoing COVID-19 response. Further, it reminds us that scientific progress and capacity built in the face of one pandemic, HIV/AIDS, can lead us to our target of a safe, effective, globally accessible COVID-19 vaccine – and vice versa.
Background photo: Community Advisory Board (CAB) in Kenya (Sokomoto Photography, 2011)
Expanding the HIV prevention toolkit
Any HIV prevention toolkit is incomplete without HIV vaccine research and development (R&D) at the forefront – the only way to end the HIV epidemic is with an HIV vaccine. IAVI and partners are closer than ever to this goal. Check out our HIV factsheet to learn more about this work.
On WAD, IAVI and our partners celebrate recent strides continue to be made in HIV prevention R&D:
- Results from an HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) study in November demonstrated long-acting injectable cabotegravir as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to be highly effective in preventing HIV acquisition in women in sub-Saharan Africa.
- An announcement by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in July suggests that a vaginal ring for PrEP delivery should finally become available as an HIV prevention option for women in lower-income countries – primarily in Africa – by next year.
- Elsewhere, the PrEPVacc trial will take place in four African nations, testing two vaccine regimens and two options for oral PrEP.
Another promising area of progress is broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies, or HIV bnAbs, which some people naturally develop after many years of HIV infection. Some HIV-specific bnAbs are already being tested in clinical trials, both for prevention and treatment, alone and in combination. Currently, IAVI is sponsoring four clinical trials of HIV bnAbs.
In complement with preclinical and clinical development of bnAbs, IAVI and our partners are working to ensure that bnAbs, once shown to be efficacious, will be promptly, globally, and affordably accessible to the people who need them. Find out more in our bnAbs for HIV prevention factsheet.
Background image: A young woman in her fishing community on Lake Victoria in Uganda (Sokomoto Photogrpahy, 2011)
Access to affordable HIV prevention technologies
We must ensure that both existing and future HIV prevention technologies are globally accessible and affordable to those who need them most. To achieve this goal, collaboration across all sectors involved will be critical. We must call upon pharmaceutical companies, global health agencies, public sector entities, philanthropic organisations, and ministries of health to join forces while ensuring that the communities most affected by HIV have a seat at the table.
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To this end, in collaboration with Wellcome, IAVI published a global call to action earlier this year on expanding access to monoclonal antibody-based products. Monoclonal antibodies, which offer important treatment and prevention possibilities for HIV, remain prohibitively expensive in low- and middle-income countries. This call to action offers critical guidance on how to ensure equitable access to monoclonal antibodies, including for HIV. Read the report here.
African solutions for African problems
HIV continues to be one of the greatest public health threats in sub-Saharan Africa and the African scientific community is fully dedicated to being a key element of the solution. As Dr. Marianne Mureithi, chief research scientist at KAVI-ICR, says, “we have African problems that need African solutions.” African-led science must be at the frontline in solving these problems.
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Antibodies from Africa lead to African trial
HIV vaccine science is coming full circle in Africa. In 2019, the Phase I IAVI W001 trial of a first-of-its-kind HIV vaccine candidate to be tested in an African population began enrollment in Kenya and the U.S. This trial is a culmination of two decades of research, made possible by insights gained from antibodies and HIV virus sequences identified in African participants.
Background photo: Lab technician at work, IAVI lab in Kenya (IAVI)
Capacity development, not building
Significant intellectual resources and infrastructure for HIV prevention research already exist across Africa, a reality that the term “capacity building” undervalues. As Dr. Anatoli Kamali, Regional Director, Africa, says “Capacity building has the connotation that you are building something from scratch, but actually, you are developing the capacity that is already here. So, it’s not capacity building, it’s capacity development.”
These efforts include further developing scientific research capacity on the continent by supporting young African scientists, so they can become leaders in the global efforts to develop, test, and eventually implement a future HIV vaccine and other prevention strategies. Moreover, it emphasizes the shifting of leadership to African investigators, or as Dr. Kamali describes, allowing the research “to be driven by Africans for Africa.” To learn more, read the special Africa edition of the IAVI Report.
Background photo: Lab technician at work, IAVI lab in Kenya (IAVI)
Community engagement
In November’s ministerial meeting of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition, Peter Sands, Executive Director of the Global Fund, shared that “we are more effective when we target and tailor HIV prevention methods. To do this requires good data and the active involvement and leadership of communities affected by HIV. Only when they are involved will we get the impact we’re looking for."
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By prioritizing community engagement, we can develop tools that are acceptable, affordable, and accessible to the communities who will benefit most. End-user research is key to this process, providing additional insights on product development, including on formulation, device, delivery, and packaging decisions. Importantly, an effective community engagement approach will empower communities to make informed choices and to demand the products that will meet their needs.
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It’s important that we recognize the tremendous efforts of community members who work tirelessly to engage their communities in HIV prevention research. This year, we congratulate Stephen Anguva on receiving the @PEPFAR Heroes Award. Stephen is the Director of the Pamoja TB Group and Chair of the KAVI-ICR Kangermi CAB and Steve credits this achievement to the power of community engagement and the immense team effort of all involved. This World AIDs Day, Stephen calls for prioritization of this work to help find lasting HIV solutions.
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JIAS supplement on Engagement of African men and transgender women who have sex with men in HIV research
Men and transgender women who have sex with men are 10 to 15 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population in sub-Saharan Africa. Outreach, engagement, and research participation with this population have been recognized as vital to HIV prevention and control efforts in the region. A supplement published in October by the Journal of the International AIDS Society showcases recent efforts to engage this population in HIV prevention and treatment research across the continent. This publication included robust representation from IAVI’s ADVANCE networks and collaborators and was guest edited by Pat Fast, IAVI’s Chief Medical Officer.
Background image: Two men holding hands in Kilifi, Kenya (Sokomoto Photography, 2015)
Resources
IAVI Factsheet: The world needs and HIV vaccine
IAVI Factsheet: Antibodies for HIV prevention
IAVI Report: Africa Edition – Vol. 23, No. 1, 2019
Expanding access to monoclonal antibody-based products: A global call to action
How AIDS vaccine research could help fight COIVD-19 – Emma Keeling, April 2020