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On this episode of the Advocacy Chronicles:  A look at advocacy in Uganda for the Dual Prevention Pill (DPP), a new product combining oral PrEP and oral contraception.

Ruth Akulu is a member of the DPP Civil Society Advisory Group, part of the Uganda Country Coordinating Mechanism Board for Global Fund,  and a 2022 AVAC Advocacy Fellow. Akulu talks about her work to mobilize regulatory authorities to prepare for the DPP. And while she was at it, the establishment of a groundbreaking new initiative, the Product Regulator’s Engagement Committee, which is supporting ongoing engagement between government regulators and young women representing their communities. 
To support your advocacy for the DPP and other multipurpose prevention technologies check out AVAC's Advocates' Guide on MPTs  https://avac.org/resource/advocates-guide-to-multipurpose-prevention-technologies-mpts/


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In this episode,  Nsubuga Allan Mwasa a Ugandan activist, a clinical psychologist,  and a representative of Sexual Minorities Uganda, or SMUG, an organization that has been at the forefront of the fight for LGBTQ rights, talks about how advocates are organizing to survive and challenge Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), passed one year ago.  A donation to SMUG supports the work of the Strategic Response Team documenting civil rights violations and intensifying persecution of LGBTQI+ Ugandans. Funds have reached a critical low,  click here to donate to SMUG. 
 
SMUG is part of Convening For Equality CFE, a coalition of civil society groups dedicated to challenging Uganda's AHA and other legislation that discriminates against LGBTQI+ individuals. The law has significantly increased discrimination and violence against the LGBTQI+ community, despite widespread international condemnation and ongoing legal challenges.

A new report by the CFE's Strategic Response Team (SRT), UNWANTED, OUTLAWED AND ILLEGAL: THE CRY OF LGBTIQ+ UGANDANS, documents evictions, arrests, imprisonment, forced anal examaminations, and community violence against LGBTQ+ people since the passage of AHA.  

It’s considered one of the most important and most difficult scientific enterprises in the history of modern medicine—the hunt for an HIV vaccine.  It has led to vast knowledge of HIV and the immune system, and to breakthrough technology. But developing an effective HIV vaccine is still out of reach, while HIV incidence remains high in hard-hit places in the world. In this episode, Nina Russell of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation talks about where she sees promise in the science, the goals for an HIV vaccine, and why it has an essential role to play alongside the scale-up of PrEP. Go to https://avac.org/resource/an-hiv-vaccine/

Our debut episode of the Advocacy Chronicles features Yvette Raphael, the Executive Director of Advocacy for Prevention of HIV and AIDS (APHA) in South Africa, and a leader in the development of The Choice Manifesto, supported from start to finish by CASPR.

As co-chair of the African Women Prevention Community Accountability Board (AWPCAB), Yvette and other board members launched the manifesto in Kampala, in September 2023, calling for choice in HIV prevention options for women — such as oral and injectable cabotegravir for PrEP, the dapivirine vaginal ring and the Dual Prevention Pill — and a commitment to expanding access to them. A call heard by UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, who was on hand at the launch to endorse the manifesto.  

Yvette, who is also a 2014 AVAC Advocacy Fellow and celebrated as one of South Africa’s leading human rights activists, lays out why The Choice Manifesto matters and how advocates are leveraging it. 

In this episode of PxPulse, we talk about why and how the decisions that shape global health must be made by those facing the greatest risks. As the world evaluates the pandemic response and debates on decolonizing global health gain momentum, equity in global health has never been more urgent. 

This conversation features global health leader and critic, Dr. Madhukar Pai. And two members of the transnational coalition COMPASS Africa, Francis Luwole and Barbra Ncube, offer an up-close look at the coalition’s pioneering new model for power-sharing.
Get more details and resources at https://avac.org/resource/decolonizing-global-health/

People who are pregnant or lactating (PLP) have historically been excluded from research because of concerns for the developing fetus. But this has led to a dearth of data on new interventions against health threats for this population. In the case of HIV, pregnancy raises the risk of acquiring HIV by up to three times, but providers often do not have the data to know whether a new intervention is safe or how it will work for pregnant patients. As a result, PLP and their physicians are left to make difficult decisions around the use of proven HIV prevention products as they await more data specific to pregnancy and lactation. 

But change is in the air. Champions for the inclusion of PLP in research are paving the way for a paradigm shift— one that will redefine this population from needing protection from research to being better protected through research. In this episode of Px Pulse, AVAC’s Manju Chatani-Gada takes us through conversations with a trial participant who became pregnant, researchers, policy-makers, and donors to understand why this population gets excluded, the impact it has, and what to do about it.