WHAT’S 🆕?
Good news science. Now what?
July and August 2024 saw good news for HIV prevention science and people’s access to what science has on offer – “but as advocates, we know it’s not yet time to celebrate or rest because access is always lagging way way behind the science”, says Yvette Raphael, Executive Director of Advocacy for Prevention of HIV and AIDS (APHA). Yvette is a health advocate in South Africa who considers writing and creating content about HIV science and access a critical part of her advocacy. See: The basket of HIV prevention options needs to be filled
Raphael also works closely with journalists around the world to co-create HIV stories and she and a network of peers in Africa put pressure on media outlets to keep HIV on the news agenda.
Recent good news stories on HIV prevention:
In late August, Eswatini announced it would soon roll out the first women-controlled HIV prevention product, the dapivirine vaginal ring. The ring is made of silicone and slowly releases the antiretroviral drug dapivirine into the vagina, helping to reduce a woman’s risk of acquiring HIV.
Uganda also announced good news in late August: plans to introduce a long-acting injectable HIV prevention drug, known as Cabotegravir, from September.
In July, at the 25th International AIDS conference in Munich, an HIV prevention game-changer was announced: results of an HIV prevention drug trial showed that not a single one of the more than 2000 participants who received the six-monthly injection of lenacapavir acquired HIV during the study period.
“Lenacapavir has the possibility of transforming the HIV prevention landscape and changing the lives of millions of people around the world. There must be no delays in making it available globally. Now more than ever, we need speed, scale and equity to ensure we get impact”, said Mitchell Warren, AVAC’s executive director when the study results were made known.
At a panel discussion at AIDS 2024 titled “Putting people first: How to translate science and policy to the world”, Peter-Philipp Schmitt, an editor with Frankfurter Allgemeine, said its undeniable that HIV is a scientific success story. However, “the next step is to ensure that we roll out these new prevention tools as soon as possible to people in lower and middle income countries.”
“These are all stories for which we drive coverage in the media science cafés which we host every month”, says Daniel Aghan, the Executive Director of Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA). MESHA leads a Consortium of media science cafés in East and Southern Africa, who also host coss-border cafés on breaking HIV news of regional interest or multi-country topics. The media science café conveners in Zambia, Lorraine Mwanza, and Zimbabwe, Anna Miti, both attended AIDS2024 and took home dozens of story ideas for discussion with health journalists in their countries. “xxxMedia sparks conversation and can drive demandxxx”, says Miti, who heads up the Health Communicators Forum in Zimbabwe. Journalists who attend media science cafés get to know the science, then consider how to best translate it for their audiences
Read about AVAC’s work on PrEP here.