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We are excited to release a new edition of our PxPulse podcast New Products are Needed and a New Paradigm is Essential: A new era in prevention?
Tomorrow will be the 34th anniversary of World AIDS Day. It comes as countries around the world are approving diverse new options for PrEP, and the uptake of oral PrEP is reaching new heights. For the first time, the HIV response can offer the choice of multiple biomedical options—some long acting, some user controlled, some daily—that protect against HIV. At this critical juncture, global conversations are underway that could leverage this new era of choice and fundamentally reimagine how the world delivers prevention, not just for HIV but as a new paradigm for global health equity and impact. At AVAC, we have been talking about the unprecedented opportunity to dramatically reduce the number of new infections, and to lay the foundation to overcome systemic inequities in global health.
This podcast explores these questions in depth and features PEPFAR Ambassador Dr. John Nkengasong; Kenneth Mwehonge, Executive Director of HEPS-Uganda and former AVAC Advocacy Fellow; and Lilian Benjamin Mwakyosi, the Executive Director of DARE in Tanzania and former AVAC Advocacy Fellow. Listen to the full podcast here, and listen to this snippet of Amb. Nkengasong in his appeal for an aggressive strategy to scale up combination prevention, including injectable cabotegravir for PrEP.
As we reflect on so many 2022 milestones—the 7th replenishment of the Global Fund, new leadership and a new strategic direction at PEPFAR, the launch of the Pandemic Fund, the launch of the Global HIV Prevention Coalition 2025 Roadmap, the introduction of the dapivirine vaginal ring and injectable cabotegravir for PrEP—we call on our global community to join us in marking this a turning point toward reaching equity and impact in HIV prevention.
This World AIDS Day:
- It’s time for coordinated planning for rolling out new HIV prevention options, such as injectable cabotegravir for PrEP and the dapivirine vaginal ring.
- It’s time to ensure equitable access to diverse choices.
- It's time for tailored programs that reach the people who need prevention most.
- It’s time for community leadership in research, development, and program design.
- It’s time for investment in the people who keep health systems running, and their innovative ideas for public health resilience.
- It’s time for the policies and political will to dismantle the structural barriers to HIV prevention and global health at large.
These actions to advance HIV prevention, and end the epidemic by 2030, represent a model that can and should be adapted to any intervention, any product, and to any public health threat. These actions are the recipe to finally arrive at a world without AIDS and to realize equity in global health.