1. What advocacy issues need to be addressed to build a more comprehensive response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic?
2. What are the key elements of a comprehensive response?
3. What are some common priorities among microbicide, vaccine and treatment advocates?
4. How can AIDS vaccine research promote AIDS prevention and treatment globally?
5. How does social just factor into a comprehensive response to HIV/AIDS?
Shared advocacy in this pandemic - AVAC's call to action that includes issues for action, what you and your communities can do, and the need for shared advocacy in our fight against this pandemic. (2002)
What is MTV Advocacy? - An introduction to joint advocacy on HIV microbicides, treatment and vaccines from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network (PDF version) (2005)
What is MTV Advocacy? - View this informative PowerPoint presentation on MTV advocacy from the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. (2005)
PrEP Watch - Link to an up-to-date source of information on trials of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) happening around the world. Learn more about the basics of PrEP science and why it's being investigated as a possible prevention method, what's being said about it in the news, advocacy issues around PrEP and information on current PrEP trials. (2006)
Missing the Target - A report on HIV/AIDS treatment access prepared by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC). The report includes a systematic assessment of treatment scale up and concrete recommendations for the future in an effort to accomplish universal access by 2010. (2005)
The Global Campaign - Link to the Global Campaign for Microbicides website for more information on microbicides and the Campaign's work to accelerate access to new HIV prevention options. (2006)
Microbicide Watch - Read the inaugural issue of Microbicide Watch, which offers information, assessment, analysis and recommendations for HIV prevention policymakers and advocates. (2006)
HIV microbicides, treatments and vaccines: toward coordinated advocacy - A review of the importance of collaboration and coordination among treatment, vaccine and microbicide researchers and advocates. From the Canadian HIV/AIDS Policy & Law review. (2004)
HIV Vaccines Questions and Answers for HIV Treatment Advocates - A helpful guide for HIV treatment advocates who want to learn more about HIV vaccine prevention and how it relates to their work as treatment advocates. From the National Institutes of Health. (2005)
HIV Vaccines Questions and Answers for HIV Prevention Workers - A helpful guide for HIV prevention workers who want to learn more about HIV vaccine prevention and how it relates to their work as prevention workers. From the National Institutes of Health. (2005)
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History has taught us that vaccines are one of the most powerful public health interventions for controlling the spread of infectious disease. This fact, in addition to the devastating nature of HIV, is the impetus for the global research effort to develop safe and effective AIDS vaccines. However, we must remember that a vaccine will not spell the end of AIDS. There will still be tens of millions of people around the world living with HIV/AIDS (if not more depending on when a vaccine is discovered) and they will still need access to treatment and care. Also, no vaccine is 100% effective - in fact most of the vaccines licensed in the developed world are between 70-95% effective. This means any AIDS vaccine will need to be provided as part of a complete package that includes prevention so that people practice safer sex, use clean needles and talk about their HIV status with sexual partners.
The reality is that the best response to HIV/AIDS is a comprehensive response - one that includes prevention, HIV testing, access to treatment and care and research and social justice advocacy. Each component of this continuum plays a critical part in the fight against HIV/AIDS but alone none are adequate to control or end the pandemic. Consider AIDS treatment - we know that mono-therapy (or treating with a single drug) is not ideal. The virus eventually overcomes the drug and the risk of developing drug resistance is high. Combination therapy is much more effective because it attacks HIV at multiple points of the virus's replication cycle. Likewise, in order to defeat HIV we will need to attack the pandemic at multiple points as well.
This means access to prevention tools and HIV testing, treatment and care must be improved around the world. At the same time we must ensure continued research to develop better treatments, vaccines, microbicides and other new prevention technologies. HIV has proven to be a complex and relentless adversary - our response must be equally complex and relentless.
In order to wage a successful fight against AIDS/HIV we must improve collaboration among the various camps and link agendas as we share many of the same or similar goals. Coordinated advocacy can create global partnerships and improve the overall response to the AIDS pandemic. There are also many commonalities among advocacy agendas for people working on vaccines, global public health, maternal and child health, human rights and other issues.
In particular, there are clear opportunities for collaboration among advocacy for vaccines, microbicides and treatments. Research can be improved across the board through the coordination and sharing of literature, community mapping activities, needs analyses, socio-behavioral studies, volunteer recruitment campaigns and standards of care for trial participants.
Working in isolation is counterproductive. It unnecessarily drains limited financial and human resources. It squanders opportunities for clinical trials to do more to expand access to treatment and prevention in the community, and to fully involve communities in these studies. It also means missed opportunities to learn important lessons from one another - for example, microbicide advocates have extensive experience related to the inclusion of women in clinical research; vaccine advocates have more experience with larger scale prevention clinical trials; and treatment advocates have invaluable experience involving communities in research.
A safe and effective AIDS vaccine could prove to be a powerful tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS but development of a vaccine is about more than just that - it is about fighting HIV as part of a comprehensive global effort against the greatest public health threat humankind has ever faced.
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