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By Matthew Rose · NMAC Policy and Advocacy Manager

In recent years our movement has seen tangible progress and scientific breakthroughs that are building real pathways that will help end the HIV epidemic. However, NMAC knows that more must be done to educate and engage all communities in order to eliminate systemic barriers and establish best practices for enrolling people of color onPrEP.

Data shows that in the United States people of color, particularly MSM of color, make-up the majority of people living with HIV and account for the majority of new HIV infections annually. Unfortunately, PrEP is not reaching these communities despite the fact that they need it the most. As a result, NMAC is taking steps to make sure that important tools in the HIV prevention toolkit are made more accessible.

Thanks to special funding from Gilead, NMAC has created PrEP Working Groups in five key southern cites to identify ways community organizations can maximize PrEP services for people of color.  Based upon data collected through assessments conducted by both community partners in local cities and NMAC’s own national survey of PrEP navigator programs, we have established blueprint plans that will outline best practices meant to ensure these programs better reach people of color.

NMAC’s intention in targeting these five southern cities is to engage local leaders who live in communities hardest hit by HIV. Because we believe that we cannot achieve success without engaging all members of the communities: we will engage Black and Latinx MSM college students and collaborate with local CBOs, university health & counseling centers, AIDS education & training Centers, health clinics, city health departments, and LGBTQ associations to identify barriers and determine best practices to reaching these communities.

At our 2017 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit NMAC will sponsor a Learning Collaborative for leaders from cities with pre-established PrEP Working Groups and those members of our own PrEP Working Groups. This LC will allow navigators to share plans, exchange ideas, and learn about best practices that have worked in addressing the epidemic within their own communities. Based upon the data collected and feedback received from these working groups, NMAC will publish a blueprint guide specifically focused on Best Practices for Reaching People of Color to be launched at the 22^nd USCA in 2018.

Yours in the Struggle,

Matthew Rose
Policy and Advocacy Manager

HIV Vaccine Research: A Marathon Not a Sprint

Today NMAC recognizes HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. While a HIV vaccine has not yet been discovered, we acknowledge the tremendous progress that has been made in HIV prevention research and look forward to ending the epidemic once and for all.
By Matthew Rose · NMAC Policy and Advocacy Manager

As I reflect on HIV vaccine research I am reminded about running a marathon. In the same ways marathon runners commit to the grueling training, the hard work, and the non-stop commitment towards a single goal, they know that the sweet reward of crossing the finish line will be worth all the struggles, aches, and pain.

The search for a vaccine for HIV has been a 30-year-long marathon. While we have maintained a sense of urgency in the fight against HIV, we have always known that this process would be a long-term endeavor. Vaccines are some of the most cost-effective prevention strategies. They were essential in eradicating diseases like smallpox, and in bringing other diseases like measles and polio under control. We know that HIV, like many other diseases that have taken decades for a vaccine to be developed, will not go away easily.

Yet while no fully licensed preventive HIV vaccine exists, tremendous progress has been made in the realm of HIV research. Scientists continue to push the envelope of creating a fully realized HIV vaccine, and because of many of their developments we have discovered pathways that have led to breakthroughs in creating vaccines for other infectious diseases such as Zika and Ebola.

By teaching the immune system to create responses that prevent HIV from establishing itself in the body, a HIV vaccine will be a prevention option that meets the needs of many communities most vulnerable to HIV; which, in the US, has disproportionately been people of color and women.

We are reaching a new mile marker in this race of a lifetime. For the first time in over a decade, two vaccine trials and another vaccine-related approach are either in  or simultaneously moving into efficacy trials. The first, a vaccine trial known as HVTN 702, kicked off in South Africa last October.  The other vaccine trial, will test a ‘mosaic’ candidate and starts in sub-Saharan Africa in the coming months. Finally, the antibody-mediated prevention study (the AMP study) is already underway in the Americas, Europe, and Africa. While these trials will only show results in the next several years, their prospects and the scientific findings are exciting. Most importantly, they represent a continued endurance on this long, hard road to discover what might be a large-scale game changer in the way we handle this enduring epidemic.

If the HIV epidemic has taught us anything, it is that we need multiple ways to fight the virus. People need options that fit into their lives and the way they live, so that HIV does not have to be a constant worry. Existing HIV prevention and treatment strategies are essential, yet there are many whose lives make it hard for them to use or access these methods; we owe it to them to establish a battery of additional options, including a vaccine. So we will continue until the finish line in the race that is the quest for an HIV vaccine. On the way we will continue to discover things that help fight for our better future: a world that gives all people hope… and options.

Yours in the Struggle,

Matthew Rose
Policy and Advocacy Manager

For more on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, visit: http://www.avac.org/hvad, and follow the hashtag #HIVvaccineAware

100 Days: What Are We Fighting For?

It’s the first 100 days of the new administration: what are we fighting for?  NMAC’s bottom line is access to healthcare, medication, and wrap-around services for all people living with HIV.  Through many administrations, multiple pieces of legislation, and revised strategies, that has always been our guiding principle. NMAC uses access as the litmus test to deal with the myriad of challenges facing our communities.

100 Days into the new Trump Administration and we’ve had to reprogram ourconferences, capacity building, advocacy work, listservs, and messaging.  Revising the tone and tenor of our communications has required different messages for constituents vs. the administration.  As a movement that depends on government funding, we mustwork with Congress and the Trump Administration. However, as an organization that leads with race, it is in our DNA to speak out for justice.  We’ve had to learn to balance these competing needs.  Here are some of NMAC’s lessons from the first 100 Days:

• Don’t Panic
• Show Up & Fight
• Hope

Don’t Panic
Immediately after inauguration, Presidential Executive Orders threw DC into a tailspin.  They made it difficult to figure out priorities and very easy to panic.  After 100 days, we’ve seen that DC is a very difficult place to change.  Many proposals were either tabled or stopped.  Democracy is messy and challenging, and that’s exactly what our founders wanted.  The initial panic has given way to a focused understanding that we have time.

In order to survive, NMAC has learned how to send out “dog whistles” to not put our movement’s funding in the crosshairs.  We don’t publicly comment on everything, but that does not mean we aren’t working on critical issues behind the scenes.  Part of our response has been to build new partnerships and to operate in different ways.  NMAC is part of a group of agencies that has hired a firm to represent us on Capitol Hill.  It’s not helpful to share what they do, but please know this group is present in more ways than we publicly discuss.

Show Up & Fight
From the Women’s March to the congressional town hall meetings on healthcare reform, we’ve come to understand how important it is to show up and speak truth to power.  We aren’t sitting on the sidelines hoping to be saved.  To end the HIV epidemic, our movement must show up and fight.

The new administration has changed the equation for activism.  That’s why this year’s HIV Action Day is so important. Join us September 6^th in Washington, DC to make your voice heard.  We know that movements that turn out constituents are the movements that make a difference.  Your movement needs you!

Hope
The election threw me for a loop.  We are so close to ending the epidemic, yet could that happen without access to healthcare?  100 days into the new administration and I am hopeful that can still be our goal.  It’s going to be a struggle and we will not get everything we need, but we will also not lose everything.  There are reasons to hope.  The new administration has expressed its support of the Ryan White Care Act.  People are fighting back for healthcare.  Change is coming much slower, that gives us time to continue our work to end the epidemic.

Not only is this NMAC’s 30^th anniversary, but I’ve also been its executive director for 27 years and 9 months (but who’s counting).  I was there when our movement looked death in the face and laughed.  We are stronger than any administration.  There is reason to hope.  Join us at USCA in September, come to the Summit in December. Your movement needs you and you need your movement.

Yours in the struggle,

Paul Kawata
202.277.2777