What Matters Right Now for Rolling Out the Ring and Injectable PrEP?

The HIV field has two new approved prevention options waiting in the wings, the dapivirine vaginal ring and injectable cabotegravir as PrEP. Until now, daily oral PrEP, first approved in 2012, has been the only drug-based strategy for HIV prevention.

So here we are: research has shown safety and efficacy for both the ring and injectable cabotegravir. Now it’s time to take the next steps to deliver these options and translate advances in science into real impact on the epidemic.

At AVAC, we’ve been calling for coordinated planning to introduce and rollout new products, while expanding access to existing options. These efforts must learn from the mistakes of the past, especially lessons from rolling out oral PrEP.

In this episode of PxPulse, Linda-Gail Bekker from South Africa’s Desmond Tutu Health Foundation and Lillian Mworeko from the International Community of Women Living with HIV East Africa (ICWEA) join host Jeanne Baron and AVAC’s Executive Director Mitchell Warren to discuss innovative models for scale-up and delivery. Taking the right steps now could mean HIV prevention options fulfill their life-saving, epidemic-ending potential, and to do so requires working faster and more efficiently than ever before.

We dive into what lessons the field has learned, what’s still off-track, and the steps advocates, policy makers, drug makers and funders should each take right now to turn efficacious options into effective choices.

Resources

Dapivirine Vaginal Ring

• Dapivirine Vaginal Ring Advocacy Package
• About the Dapivirine Vaginal Ring

Cabotegravir

• Advocates Primer on Injectable Cabotegravir as PrEP
• About Cabotegravir as PrEP

Ring and CAB

• Getting Rollout Right: Lessons from Oral PrEP
• Are We PrEPared this Time? Ensuring a Swift Translation of Research into Community Impact
• Oral PrEP Implementation and Implications for Next Generation PrEP
• Ups & Downs in the Field: Setting an Agenda Together for HIV Prevention in 2022