HIVR4P 2014: HIV Prevention Requires Supporting and Respecting Key Affected Populations

Supporting, protecting, and involving key populations heavily impacted by HIV -- including gay and bisexual men, sex workers, and people who inject drugs -- is a critical aspect of HIV prevention. Advances in biomedical prevention must be developed in collaboration with and made available to the people who need them most, according to several presentations at the HIV Research for Prevention meeting taking place this week in Cape Town.

Below is an edited excerpt from an HIV R4P press release describing highlights from presentations addressing this theme.

Supporting, Respecting and Protecting Key Populations Is Today’s Focus at HIV Research for Prevention (HIV R4P)

The First Global Research Conference Dedicated Exclusively to Biomedical HIV Prevention Highlights the Rights and Needs of Men who Have Sex with Men, Sex Workers and People who Inject Drugs

Cape Town, South Africa -- October 28, 2014 -- HIV Research for Prevention (HIV R4P) continues today with a focus on making HIV prevention advances available to the communities that need them most, and the meaningful engagement of those communities in efforts to develop the next generation of HIV prevention approaches. HIV R4P, the first global scientific meeting focused exclusively on biomedical HIV prevention, has brought 1,300 AIDS researchers, policy makers, advocates, and funders to the Cape Town International Conference Center through Friday, 31 October.

Today’s conference plenary, "Targeting Biomedical Preventions to Different At-Risk Populations," addresses the critical challenges involved in engaging communities at risk in HIV prevention research and in making new and effective prevention methods available to key populations. Those challenges can be especially acute when people at risk for HIV are stigmatized, impoverished, have less social power or, in many cases, are criminalized.

"Scientific advances against HIV are critically important, but at the end of the day HIV impacts real people," noted Linda-Gail Bekker of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre in Cape Town. "To reduce and end this epidemic, researchers, policy makers and funders must recognize and support the human rights of all people affected by this epidemic, and must commit to work with them as full partners in the effort to end it."

Chris Beyrer of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (U.S.) opens today’s plenary with an address on those critical issues, entitled "Tailoring Biomedical Prevention Interventions for Key Populations: Towards Safety, Efficacy, Effectiveness." Beyrer, who is also president of the International AIDS Society, discusses the challenges involved in supporting communities that are often marginalized or criminalized, including men who have sex with men, sex workers, and people who inject drugs, to stay safe from HIV.

In her plenary talk, "Working with Special Populations within HIV Prevention Intervention Programs and Trials," Bridget Haire of the University of New South Wales (Australia) addresses the need to frame HIV prevention research and implementation within a broader human rights context. Haire’s research examines the social and political barriers to effective HIV prevention within key populations, some of which have become even more entrenched in recent years.

Pontiano Kaleebu of the MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS offers both an African and global perspective on the intersection of biomedical, behavioral, and structural interventions to prevent HIV in his plenary talk, "Tailoring Interventions to Different Populations." Kaleebu focuses on the need for locally tailored interventions to mobilize and meaningfully engage key populations at risk for HIV, including people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, sex workers, and fisherfolk.

Advances and challenges in engaging communities at risk for HIV are also featured on the HIV R4P press conference program today. Among those highlights:

Linda-Gail Bekker of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre (South Africa) presents a special edition of the medical journal The Lancet focused on the connection between HIV risk and the stigma, discrimination, and criminalization faced by sex workers in southern Africa, as well as the challenges faced by programs working to support their access to HIV prevention.

Brian Kanyemba of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre reports on "The Need for Demonstration Projects to Ensure Key Populations Gain Access to New HIV Prevention Biomedical Tools in South Africa." Kanyemba presents an analysis of the responses of men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, and representatives of community-based efforts that serve them on the need for and challenges of establishing demonstration projects providing HIV treatment as prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis within these communities. Kanyemba’s research addresses obstacles such as stigma in health care settings and the criminalization of key populations at risk for HIV.

The critical role of language in understanding and communicating about sexual behavior and HIV risk is the topic of "Language, Terminology and Understanding of Anal Sex amongst VOICE Participants in Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa," presented by Zoe Duby of the University of Cape Town. Duby’s research explores local vernacular for sexual behaviors, particularly anal intercourse, which the study indicates is potentially underreported due to ambiguity and misinterpretation of terms.

Concluding today’s press conference, Jonah Chinga of the Minority Persons Empowerment Group (Kenya) presents on a partnership of the LGBT and research communities in Kenya aimed at developing a common agenda and ethical guidelines for HIV research in a setting in which LGBT people are criminalized. In his paper, "Breaking Barriers: Do Research Interests Meet the Needs of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community in Kenya?" Chinga argues that strengthening the capacity of LGBT organizations is instrumental in ensuring the ethical conduct of HIV research in rights constrained settings, and lays out an agenda for sustainable partnerships to match the research agendas of scientists and the LGBT community.

"Neither research on how to prevent HIV nor the successful roll-out of interventions that work are possible without the support and participation of the populations most at risk for the disease," said HIV R4P co-chair Anatoli Kamali of the Medical Research Council/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS. "The research presented here today shows once again that stigma, discrimination and criminalization hinder HIV prevention, while the informed engagement of all people at risk enable national policies, strengthen political will to address the epidemic constructively and are key to ending this epidemic."

HIV R4P continues through Friday, 31 October. The schedule of daily HIV R4P press conferences, and dial-in information to hear those press conferences live, is available here. The conference scientific program is available here. All R4P plenary, symposia, roundtables and oral abstract sessions will be available via webcast on hivr4p.org within 24 hours of conference presentation. News from HIV R4P will also be available through the HIV R4P Facebook page and the Twitter hashtag #HIVR4P.

About HIV R4P

HIV R4P is the world's first and only scientific meeting dedicated exclusively to biomedical HIV prevention research. Through both abstract and non-abstract driven sessions, the conference will support cross-fertilization between research on HIV vaccines, microbicides, PrEP, treatment as prevention and other biomedical prevention approaches, while also providing a venue to discuss the research findings, questions and priorities that are specific to advancing each modality. Conference partners include the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center; amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research; the French National Agency for Research on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS); the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Government of Canada; CONRAD; Crucell; the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; Gilead Sciences; GlaxoSmithKline; the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative; the International Partnership for Microbicides; the Medical Research Council; the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases at the NIH; the NIH Office of AIDS Research; PEPFAR; Sanofi Pasteur; UNAIDS; USAID; ViiV Healthcare; and the Wellcome Trust. Significant in-kind support was provided by AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention; Emory University; Imperial College, London; Medical Research Council/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS; University of Pittsburgh and the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand.

10/31/14

Source

HIVR4P. Supporting, Respecting and Protecting Key Populations Is Today’s Focus at HIV Research for Prevention (HIVR4P 2014). Press release. October 28, 2014.