Email Updates

You are here

Home»Media

AVAC in the News

  • HIV Prevention Ring Approved, but Next Steps Unclear

    In a decision widely welcomed by civil society organisations, the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA) recently approved the use of the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring for women 18 years and older to reduce the risk of HIV infection.

    March 29, 2022
    Microbicides, PrEP
    Spotlight

  • Catalyzing Action on HIV/SRH Integration: Lessons From Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe to Spur Investment

    Examining the opportunities and challenges of HIV/SRH integration implemented recently in three countries – Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe – provides lessons to spur integration and investments there and in other nations in the region, aimed at improving health outcomes for adolescent girls and young women and curbing the global HIV epidemic. While gaps remain between strong national integration policies and program implementation, the experiences of these countries show opportunities for expanded, quality integration. This commentary draws on a longer comparative analysis of findings from rapid landscaping analyses in Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, which highlighted cross-country trends and context-specific realities around HIV/SRH integration.

    March 24, 2022
    PrEP
    Global Health Action

  • A Sin Tax on Vapes Is Not As Bad as AIDS Denialism. Here’s Why

    AIDS denialism — the government’s refusal to acknowledge HIV as the cause of AIDS, and as a result provide people with HIV with lifesaving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment — may have cost at least a third of a million South Africans their lives. That’s how many people would likely not have died of AIDS, had they had access to treatment. Now lobbyists pushing for vaping as a way to help people quit smoking insist taxing e-cigarettes like traditional smokes is leading down a similar path.

    March 22, 2022
    Treatment
    Bhekisisa

  • How the Vaginal Ring for HIV Prevention That Has Been Approved for Use by Women Above 18 in SA Works

    If you bring your index finger to your thumb then make a circle, that’s about how small this silicone ring is. Its size is tiny but its impact enormous, which is why SAHPRA’s decision to give South Africa the regulatory go-ahead to make the dapivirine vaginal ring (DVR) available monthly to women 18 and older has been lauded by women’s health and reproductive rights advocates as seismic.

    March 18, 2022
    Microbicides
    News24

  • More HIV Prevention Options for SA Women As Vaginal Ring Is Approved

    South African women who are at risk of HIV infection will now have more options for protecting themselves against infection after the approval of a vaginal ring by the country’s regulator.

    March 16, 2022
    Microbicides, PrEP
    Times Live

  • Medicines Regulator Approves Vaginal Ring for HIV Prevention

    SA’s medicines regulator has approved a vaginal ring that slowly releases the drug dapirivine, offering women protection from HIV for up to a month at a time. The development has been hailed by HIV advocates as a milestone in the quest to provide women with more options for reducing their risk of contracting the virus, but it is not clear when it will be available in SA.

    March 14, 2022
    Microbicides
    Business Day

  • African Women Could Really Benefit From Greater Access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis

    The effectiveness of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is well known but its availability has reached a turning point. Access to PrEP, previously solely targeted at men who have sex with men, is now being offered to women, primarily in Western countries. Some pioneering African countries are now offering PrEP to female sex workers, transgender people and the sexual partners of people who inject drugs. Three organizations in Mali, Mauritius and Morocco have developed a community project offering PrEP to HIV-exposed women. It provides women with tailored, sustainable services, combining research, advocacy and implementation. It shows real promise of success and has potential for scale up and replication.

    March 11, 2022
    AIDSpan

  • Are We Close to the HIV Cure? What We Learned at the 2022 Advocacy-for-Cure Academy

    Every year, a few young minds from different parts of the world aspire to work at the grassroots to understand and mitigate advocacy and research problems towards an HIV cure. These are made possible jointly through the International AIDS Society (Int. AIDS Society) Towards an HIV cure initiative and AVAC awarding fellowship to talented advocates who are working in the HIV field in resource-limited settings and who are interested in HIV care-related advocacy.

    March 10, 2022
    Cure
    Medium

  • Global COVID-19 Death Toll Tops 6 Million, Another Grim Milestone in the Pandemic

    Worldwide deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 6 million on Monday, a grim reminder of the coronavirus’s lethality as many countries relax mask-wearing and vaccination requirements.

    March 7, 2022
    General
    Washington Post

  • Given A Choice, Young Women Prefer Vaginal Ring for PrEP

    When given a choice of two proven HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) options, young cisgender women will use both but prefer a monthly vaginal ring, according to data presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections 2022 (CROI 2022).

    March 4, 2022
    Microbicides, PrEP
    POZ

Pages