Blog

By Andrew Guise, Social Science Lecturer at King’s College London, and Charles Witzel, Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine New research has explored the acceptability of remote testing for hepatitis C among people who use drugs. Just as for HIV testing, remote testing for hepatitis C must go hand in hand with access to treatment. Hepatitis C virus (HCV), like HIV, disproportionately affects key populations, such as people who use drugs or men who have sex w...

Dasha Matyushina is a Policy Reform Advisor at the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, which strives for progressive human rights-based drug policy, sustainable funding advocacy and quality client-centred harm reduction services for people who use drugs. With a background in psychology and public health, her field of expertise includes HIV and drug policy advocacy and health systems decision making, management of community-based programmes and strengthening of community systems in Eastern Europ...

By Shaun Mellors, Director: Knowledge & Influence, International HIV/AIDS Alliance and IAS Member On 2 May 1983, the first AIDS candlelight memorials were held in San Francisco and New York simultaneously, under the theme of “Fighting for our Lives”. It was the first sign that the response to HIV would be much more than a medical issue; it would be an issue that brought together communities to shed tears, to commemorate, to support each other, to react and challenge the seemingly unforgiv...

By Linda-Gail Bekker, International AIDS Society President Vaccines are modern miracles. Every year, vaccines save up to 3 million lives worldwide [1]. The measles vaccine alone has saved more than 20 million lives since 2000 [2]. Smallpox, a disease that as recently as the 1960s was associated with a death toll comparable to HIV, has now been eradicated as a result of vaccination efforts. Immunization programmes are on the cusp of eliminating polio, and expanded use of the hepatitis B vaccine...

Jeffry Acaba is a programme officer for APCASO, an Asia-Pacific civil society network of community-based and non-governmental organizations on HIV, health, and social justice, with a focus on advocacy and community capacity development. He serves as a youth focal point for the organization, coordinating APCASO’s work with the Inter-Agency Task Team (IATT) on Young Key Populations, a coalition of UN, civil society, and partners working on HIV and young key populations in Asia and the Pacific. He...

Leena Menghaney is a coordinator of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access Campaign in India and an IAS Member. She began her work on access to HIV treatment with the Lawyers Collective, an India-based human rights organization, as part of its legal aid unit assisting people living with HIV. She was one of the organizers of a 2005 campaign to ensure that India's new patent law included public health safeguards to limit the impact of patents on access to affordable medicines. This is Leena’s ...

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the HIV response has been its success in bringing antiretroviral therapy to 20.9 million people (as of June 2017). This historic accomplishment, which in 2016 alone averted 1.2 million deaths, was made possible by actions that led to a 99% decline in the cost of first-line regimens. As a result of these actions, the right to treatment access is broadly recognized.