IAS 2025 Conference: What you need to know

Dear Advocate,

IAS 2025, the 13th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science will be held next week, July 13 – 17 in Kigali, Rwanda. IAS 2025 comes at a defining moment. Scientific advances in prevention, treatment and potential avenues for a cure, are within reach, but global funding cuts are placing these innovations and their scientific discovery at risk. All this is jeopardizing the gains that communities, advocates, and researchers have fought for decades to achieve.

New research on the HIV prevention pipeline is expected to be shared alongside evidence on how the dismantling of foreign aid and the retreat from US commitments to science and global health are impacting lives and livelihoods. Every aspect of the HIV response is under attack — from basic research and clinical development to policy, programs, and global access to life-saving treatment and prevention.

See AVAC’s new report, which lays out what’s needed at this critical time to get HIV prevention into the hands of those that need it most, and join us Monday, July 14 for a satellite session, Re-imagining prevention: Ensuring sustainable PrEP access in an evolving funding context.

Use AVAC’s Roadmap to find sessions where prevention and the larger issues of global health equity and sustainability are in the spotlight. You can download it as a sortable spreadsheet or PDF.
 
Follow events in real time. AVAC will offer comments and updates on Bluesky, and our friends at NAM/aidsmap and at Bhekisisa will be reporting throughout the conference. Join the conversation using the conference hashtag #IAS2025.

• Expanding PrEP Access: The Role of HIVST in Uptake and Scale-Up - HIV Self-Testing impact on HIV diagnosis and treatment, Preconference, 09:00 – 12:45
   
• Building resilience: Strengthening national leadership, integration, and sustainable HIV programs in an era of funding transition - Sustaining HIV Prevention and Introducing / Scaling Long-Acting Prevention Tools: Navigating a Way Forward in the Current Environment, Preconference, 14:00 – 17:45

• Re-imagining prevention: Planning for sustainable PrEP access in the new funding context, Satellite, 09:30 - 11:00, sponsored by AVAC and the Ministry of Health of Zambia
   
• Consolidating and advancing African leadership of HIV Cure strategies to accelerate cure research for Africa and the world, Satellite, 11:30 - 12:30
   
• The future of person-centred HIV prevention: Latest evidence from the African continent, Satellite, 11:30 - 12:30
   
• What's new in WHO guidelines: Advancing prevention, testing, and treatment for impact and sustainability, Satellite, 13:00 - 14:30, including the launch of new LEN for PrEP guidelines
   
• Towards the finish line: Leveraging science to accelerate progress, sustain impact, and shape the future of HIV, Satellite, 15:00 - 16:30
   
• 2025: Time to bring HIV, sexual and reproductive health together for better care, Satellite, 15:00 - 16:30

• From PrEP to harm reduction: Scaling up comprehensive HIV prevention strategies, Oral abstract, 10:45 - 11:45
   
• How Long-Acting Drugs Can Help End the HIV Pandemic in Africa, Sponsor satellite, 12:15 - 13:15
   
• Confronting the storm: The future of the HIV response, Special session, 13:30 - 14:45
   
• No retreat, no surrender: Sustaining the HIV response in times of turmoil, Oral abstract, 15:00 - 16:00, featuring AVAC’s Richard Muko presenting about COMPASS’s comparative analysis of country policies and practices on domestic resource mobilization
   
• Health equity in challenging times: Threats and opportunities, Oral abstract, 16:30 - 17:30, moderated by AVAC’s Mitchell Warren
   
• Harnessing the private sector to deliver HIV prevention, Sponsor satellite, 18:00 - 19:30, featuring AVAC’s Catherine Verde Hashim presenting on policy shifts needed to deliver HIV prevention through the private sector
   
• The future of HIV prevention clinical trials, Satellite, 18:00 - 19:30, featuring AVAC’s Grace Kumwenda presenting on community perspectives in HIV prevention clinical research

• Implementation of long-acting PrEP in real world settings - the ImPrEP Project, Satellite, 12:15 - 13:15
   
• Co-Chair's choice, Oral abstract, 15:00 - 16:00, featuring a presentation of the Phase 2 safety and pharmacokinetic study of MK-8527 as once-monthly oral PrEP
   
• Let’s get real: Implementing PrEP choice in practice, Symposium, 15:00 - 16:00
   
• Developing objective targets for monitoring PrEP program progress, Satellite, 18:00 - 19:30

• Getting to grips with prevention, Plenary, 09:00 - 10:30, featuring updates on HIV vaccine discovery medicine and evidence-based innovations to simplify and de-medicalize PrEP choice
   
• Purposeful PrEP: New insights on lenacapavir for prevention, Oral abstract, 10:45 - 11:45
   
• Big money and the big picture: Funding and HIV epidemiology, Oral abstract, 12:15 - 13:15, featuring an AVAC presentation on how policies influenced PrEP uptake
   
• Pregnancy and long-acting ARVs for prevention and treatment, Symposium, 13:45 - 14:45, featuring AVAC partner Chilufya Kasanda of Ascend Futures Foundation in Zambia and updates from Merck, ViiV and Gilead on their respective PrEP programs

Access these resources, conference highlights and more at AVAC’s dedicated IAS 2025 page. And watch this space for further updates.

Best,

AVAC