Announcements

The European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) published a concise description of their Long Term Strategy for 2016-18 and the summary minutes of their Stakeholder Meeting held in Brussels on February 1, 2016.

The Long Term Strategy is the result of a thorough and deep consultation and consensus building within the EATG. The LTS confirms once again the mission statement of the organisation: "​To achieve the fastest possible access to state of the art medical products and devices, and diagnostic tests that prevent or treat HIV infection or improve the quality of life for people living with HIV, or at risk of HIV infection. In responding to HIV, the EATG will also consider diseases frequently seen as co-infections in persons living with HIV, as well as other health issues that increase the risk of HIV infection."

Secretary Clinton's mischaracterization of the Reagan Administration on Friday, March 11, sparked nationwide upset from HIV/AIDS advocates, service providers, people living with HIV, and loved ones of those lost to the epidemic. But it also has created an opportunity to bring HIV/AIDS to the forefront of the conversation during this campaign season.

A group of 70 advocates, including high-level staff at some of the most powerful AIDS service organizations and advocacy groups in the country, have signed onto a letter urging Secretary Clinton to appoint an HIV advisor to her campaign, to meet with HIV community leadership, announce a commitment to end the AIDS epidemic in the United States by 2025, and support ending the global AIDS pandemic.

Following the popularity of the first expert meeting on prevention held in January 2015, a second European HIV Prevention Summit was held on 29-31 January 2016. Organised jointly by the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) and AVAC, the meeting brought pharmaceutical companies, public health experts, academics and leading scientists in the field of prevention research together with over 50 European community based advocates for three days of information exchange and debate in Brussels.  

Please read and share widely the closing report from the meeting. The report contains live links to the presentations given at the meeting.

The European Community Advisory Board (ECAB), the scientific working group of the EATG has been pointing out the low representation and recognition of clinical research centres in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for several years. EATG/ECAB often encountered the explanation that such centres were not known or insufficiently represented in the international science and research communities for them to be included in the clinical research process.

Therefore EATG/ECAB, with valuable support from our sponsors, launched a research project to explore the possibilities to conduct clinical trials and studies in communities that are less common on the map for now but can offer good alternatives and possibilities for clinical research. Sergey Golovin, our colleague from Russia, compiled this excellent report.

The UNAIDS Caribbean Sub-regional Office is pleased to provide documents and presentations associated with the Caribbean HLM2016 Consultation conducted via WebEx on Wednesday 9th March, 2016.  

The purpose of this consultation was to engage partners in the Caribbean HIV response in a dialogue on the Continuum of Care, Financing, Human Rights and Key Populations. Your inputs will continue to help shape the Caribbean Sub-regional Road Map for the 2016 High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS to be held in New York from 8-10 June, 2016. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Zepatier (elbasvir and grazoprevir) with or without ribavirin for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotypes 1 and 4 infections in adult patients.

The IAS Towards an HIV Cure Team is excited to share the announcement of a common Material Transfer Agreement (cMTA), developed by the initiative Industry Collaboration Group, whose mission is to foster dialogue and collaboration between the private and public sector involved in HIV cure research.

The IAS issued a press release on January 20, 2016, announcing the agreement, approved by ViiV Healthcare, Gilead, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck. The cMTA represents a major achievement to accelerate research for a remission and ultimately cure for HIV by facilitating the access to combinational use of marketed compounds in antiretroviral therapy for preclinical studies.

The cMTA is the result of lengthy discussions and negotiations among the pharmaceutical companies involved. The IAS Towards an HIV Cure Team is delighted that the outcome of this collaborative effort is available to the broad scientific community, and sincerely hopes that you and your colleagues will be able to make use of this cMTA for research towards an HIV cure.

Thank you to all the members of the Industry Collaboration Group, in particular the company representatives and the co-chairs, for leading this truly collaborative effort.

Treatment Action Group has just released hepatitis C fact sheets in English and Spanish. The set includes:

• Adherence,
• Diagnostics, and
• Treatment (Sovaldi, Olysio, Viekira Pak, Harvoni, Daklinza, and Ribavirin).

PDFs of our fact sheets are available at:
http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/hcv/factsheets.

We are also happy to send you hard copies at no charge. You can order these online at:
http://www.treatmentactiongroup.org/pub-request.

As usual, we welcome any This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for improving our materials.

Treatment for hepatitis C among people who use drugs is feasible and cost-effective and hepatitis C screening, linkage to care and treatment need to be scaled up, according to new recommendations for the management of hepatitis C released by the International Network on Hepatitis Care in Substance Users (INHSU).

The recommendations are being released as part of a Special Issue on Expanding Access to Prevention, Care and Treatment for Hepatitis C Virus Infection Among People Who Inject Drugs published in the October issue of the International Journal of Drug Policy.

There is a great deal of work being done across the country to improve care for those infected with hepatitis C. This work has been reinvigorated in recent years by new tools that hold great promise, including new HCV treatments that have the potential to cure over 90% of all individuals with HCV infection as well as expanded access to healthcare coverage brought about by implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Even so, analysis of the HCV Continuum of Care in the U.S. [PDF 297 KB] indicates that, of the approximately 3.5 million individuals in the U.S. infected with hepatitis C, only 50% of those infected are aware that they have hepatitis C and only 9% have been cured. National as well as state and local HCV continuum models also show that many patients are lost at each stage between diagnosis and cure.