AIDS 2022 Dispatch

In Montreal the pressure was on. 
 
AIDS 2022 showed the global response to HIV at a crossroads. The field has achieved groundbreaking advances in biomedical solutions. But intensifying disparities in HIV prevention and global health at large threaten to eclipse these achievements. Scrutiny of the inequities was center stage in Montreal. While the UNAIDS report In Danger, released at the conference, documents what HIV advocates have known—that during the earliest phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, progress in HIV prevention did not just stall, it actively lost ground—the HIV Prevention 2025 Road Map by the Global HIV Prevention Coalition released just days later navigates a path to get back on track.
 

Advocates see how much is at stake at this moment and were making the connections to crises across the field of global health. Their call to action was constant. Protests, formal and informal, were diverse and targeted. They demanded political support and full funding to roll out the dapivirine vaginal ring (PrEP Ring), confronted the developer of injectable cabotegravir for PrEP to go further in affordable and transparent pricing, took on an anemic response to monkeypox (POZ coverage here, TheBodyPro coverage here), challenged ongoing criminalization of sex workers and other key populations, and criticized Canada for blocking the visas of hundreds of delegates to the conference. 
 
Read more about this advocacy, scientific advances, discussions on policy, populations, products and more on AVAC’s P-Values blog. Click here for our full summary of AIDS2022.
 
Happy reading.
 
All the best, 
AVAC