Webinar & Meeting Reports

On October 13, 2021, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) and AVAC hosted Can Fantasies Become Realties? The Quest for Multi-purpose Prevention Products, a webinar featuring global expert Dr. Sharon Hillier and others. They discussed the need for products that not only prevent HIV but are contraceptive as well, or prevent other STIs – or all of the above. Fascinating science is currently underway, with some new interventions getting closer to prime time.

On September 28, IPPFWHR and AVAC partners held the webinar Advancing HIV Prevention & SRHR for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in the Time of COVID. The webinar opened with remarks from Serra Sippel, Chief Global Advocacy Officer at IPPFWHR, and included a conversation with six young women advocates from Malawi, Tanzania and Zimbabwe. The panel was moderated by Liz Ford, Deputy Editor for The Guardian's Global Development website. The panelists were:

Johnson & Johnson and partners announced that the Imbokodo study, a large-scale HIV vaccine proof-of-concept trial also known as HVTN 705/HPX2008, did not significantly reduce the overall risk of HIV acquisition among over 2,600 women in five sub-Saharan African countries.

AVAC hosted a global Zoom meeting on HIV prevention research ethics entitled: “New Ethical Guidelines for HIV prevention trials in people: What’s changed and Why Does it Matter?” The meeting exposed advocates, CABs and community members to revised UNAIDS/WHO and HPTN Ethical Guidelines for HIV prevention research, and facilitated a discussion on some of the salient changes and their implications for HIV prevention clinical research.