ITPC proudly congratulates founding member and Global Advisory Board chair Gregg Gonsalves on receiving one of this year’s MacArthur Fellowships!
Gregg joins 24 other MacArthur Fellows working in diverse fields – from the arts and science to health and civil liberties. The award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation comes with a $625,000 no-strings-attached stipend to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and professional inclinations. Learn more about the program and this year’s recipients.
Gregg is a co-director of the Yale Global Health Justice Partnership, an initiative of the Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health. Gregg has been a leading HIV/AIDS activist for more than three decades. He started his work as an activist with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) and co-founded the Treatment Action Group in 1992. Gregg also worked at Gay Men’s Health Crisis as Director of Treatment and Prevention Advocacy where his efforts focused on both the United States and the global South. He relocated to South Africa in 2006, where Gregg served with the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa, in Cape Town, and where he started a regional program on scientific literacy and community mobilization around HIV and TB treatment. Gregg was chosen as the inaugural recipient of the John M Lloyd AIDS Leadership Award in 2008, in recognition of his creative and compassionate vision for eradicating HIV/AIDS.
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ITPC Board Chair Gregg Gonsalves Receives MacArthur Genius Grant
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WHAT IS MISSING FROM THE UNITED NATIONS POLITICAL DECLARATION ON TUBERCULOSIS?
(New York) — Today, UN Member States will come together at the UN Headquarters in New York City for the first “High Level Meeting” on TB, where countries will ratify a political declaration on tuberculosis (TB). Despite pressure, and securing several concrete pledges on expanding service delivery, the declaration falls short in its response to the leading infectious killer worldwide and the leading cause of death for people with HIV around the world. In order to have a meaningful impact on the TB epidemic, finally confront an infectious disease killing 4,500 people per day, and get serious about ending TB as a global epidemic, here is what the political declaration should have said:
“Tuberculosis is a global emergency that kills over one and a half million people every year. It is the leading killer of people with HIV. Yet, collectively we have failed to respond effectively to TB, because it mainly affects poor people including criminalised and marginalised communities such as people who use drugs, prisoners and their communities. We recognise our collective and individual failures. With this declaration we make it clear that the old ways are not and never were good enough.
We commit to putting the money needed for TB research and for TB programmes on the table.
We commit to implementing and aggressively scaling up access to the latest evidence-based health technologies and policies in our countries. In short, we commit to ensuring that every single person who has TB receives the best available testing, treatments, and support – irrespective of their ability to pay or in which country they may live. In pursuit of this goal, we place human rights, and particularly the right to health, ahead of private interests and short-term political considerations.
In particular, we will take the following concrete steps:
Implement all World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines relating to the diagnosis, prevention, treatment and care of TB immediately but no later than six months after publication of such guidelines. We will ensure the rapid rollout of lifesaving new diagnostics such as LAM testing, and better and safer medicines such as bedaquiline. We commit to stop using medicines that do not work, or worsen health outcomes for people with TB.
Establish ambitious national coverage and mortality reduction targets that ensure a bold scale up of national efforts to address TB. These targets must be reflected in national strategic plans developed by countries in order to ensure effective accountability. These targets should include a) a reduction in mortality by 75% by 2025; b) a reduction in new infections by 50% by 2025; c) that 90% of people with TB will be diagnosed using WHO recommended rapid diagnostics by 2023; and d) that 90% of people with TB are able to access treatment by 2023 including newer, better and safer regimens for people with drug-resistant TB.
Commit to raising the money needed to close the funding gap to ensure a comprehensive response to the TB crisis, as outlined in the WHO Global Tuberculosis Report 2018. In 2018, investments in TB prevention and care in low- and middle-income countries fell US$ 3.5 billion short of what is needed. The annual gap will widen to US$ 5.4 billion in 2020 unless additional funding is committed. We will work collectively to establish an equitable funding formula for additional funds needed based primarily on countries’, including donor countries’, ability to pay.
Invest at least 0.1% of our national gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) on TB research starting 2019 and we will continue with TB research investment at least this level until 2030. It is only through such a concrete, measurable commitment that we will ensure the annual US$ 2 billion that is required for TB research. We will ensure that TB health technologies developed with public and charitable funds will be equitably and affordably accessible to people with TB globally. We commit to ensure that publicly funded TB clinical trials include pregnant women, children, and people taking other treatments for HIV and other diseases and conditions. We commit to ensuring that better, more tolerable treatment regimens and co-formulations are developed at product development stages.
Implement the recommendation of the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines and establish, before the end of 2019, a binding convention on the research and development of critically needed health technologies for TB and other areas of urgent public health need. We commit to making annual financial contributions to a fund that will be established through the convention. We commit that no exclusive rights, in the form of intellectual property or any other means, will be granted on any products resulting from research funded through the convention.
We will, each country individually, by 2021, adopt, use, and protect the public health flexibilities available under the World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Agreement as clarified by the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health of 2001. We will raise the bar for patentability (excluding new uses, new forms, and new formulations of existing health technologies from patentability) and set up easy-to-use compulsory and government use licensing procedures with wide grounds for the issuing such licenses. Least developed countries will adopt the pharmaceutical transition period until 2033 or such time as they are no longer an LDC in accordance with the extension period allowed under WTO rules. We will, each country, refrain from any and all efforts in trade agreements or otherwise to impose TRIPS-plus measures or to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against other countries for using such measures.
We will, all high-TB burden countries individually, ensure rapid registration of TB health technologies. We commit to do this by making better use of the WHO’s Collaborative Registration system in order to speed up national registration processes, and, by facilitating and incentivising broad and expedited registration of TB medicines, diagnostics, and vaccines by originators and generic producers.
We will, all high-TB-burden countries individually with the financial support of wealthy countries, fully fund aggressive contact tracing and active case finding campaigns in all high-burden countries to find the “missing people” with TB and ensure that TB is diagnosed and treated earlier, and implement programmes to ensure people are supported through treatment better. This will not only support the health of people with TB but also reduce the spread of TB in our communities. We commit to hiring the adequate numbers of health workers needed to scale up these campaigns in order to reduce TB mortality, and we agree to motivate them with a living wage, the tools and training they need to do their work, and the infection control they require.
We will, all high-TB burden countries individually and with the financial support of wealthy countries, conduct annual audits of TB infection control in all healthcare facilities, prisons and other public buildings where people gather in our countries. We commit to making the detailed results of these audits publicly available together with turnaround plans based on the challenges identified to address shortcomings in infection control.
Commit to ensuring that community members affected by TB are engaged and participate fully in the development and implementation of TB policies and programming, including through financially and otherwise supporting TB prevention and treatment literacy campaigns and other community mobilisation efforts.
We call on Peter Sands, the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to launch immediately a reprogramming and fundraising initiative to ensure high-TB burden countries modify their Global Fund-funded TB and TB-HIV programs to reflect the newest WHO treatment and prevention guidelines rather than old and outmoded approaches.
We call on the US Congress to urgently scale up funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to support expansion of life saving TB and TB-HIV programming around the world, including by scaling up access to GeneXpert, aggressively expanding LAM testing, ensuring access to better and safer TB health technologies, and through funding the bold expansion of contact tracing and active case finding campaigns.”Issued by:
Health Global Access Project (Health GAP)
Global Coalition of TB Activists (GCTA)
The Global Tuberculosis Community Advisory Board (TB CAB)
International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC)
The Kenya Legal & Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN)
SECTION27
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC)
Treatment Action Group (TAG)
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For more information contact:
Brittany Herrick: +1 760 964 8704 | brittany@healthgap.org
Trisa Taro: + 1 909 720 0324 | ttaro@itpcglobal.com -
Unitaid investment expands our work on access to medicines
ITPC is delighted to be named one of three successful grantees of a new three year investment from Unitaid to increase access to medicines, which we will be delivering through our Make Medicines Affordable campaign.
Affordable medicines are both a human right and essential for a sustainable response to the three diseases that the campaign will focus on – HIV, hepatitis C, and TB.
Intellectual property (IP) barriers and abuses of the current patent system are the primary reason for overpriced drugs. The system is being exploited by profit-motivated pharmaceutical companies at the expense of public health budgets and citizens. Therefore, tackling IP barriers is essential if countries are to effectively fund the response and achieve the SDG health targets and the 90-90-90 goal to end the AIDS epidemic.
Our work will build on our previous three years’ success, led by civil society, also supported by Unitaid. Civil society has proven to be a significant player in challenging IP barriers, producing annualized cost savings of $472m in the previous phase, representing a return on investment of nearly 100x. This was achieved through directly opposing unmerited patents in legal challenges, strengthening national laws and patent examination processes to prevent low quality patents and working with governments to fully use the TRIPS flexibilities when necessary. This new grant will allow our work to expand from 4 to 17 countries[1].
Achieving long-term change and our goal of affordable medicines for all requires sustained investment. We are grateful that Unitaid recognizes this as a critical, and highly effective, area of work.
[1]The countries we will be working in under the Unitaid grant are: Argentina, Armenia, Belarus, Brazil, El Salvador, Georgia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Morocco, Russia, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam.
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Communities Leave Important Mark at AIDS 2018
On 22-27 July 2018, ITPC was in Amsterdam in the Netherlands for the 2018 International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018). With support from the Robert Carr Fund, Open Society Foundations, and Bridging the Gaps initiative, we were able to ensure treatment access issues were brought to the center of the conference.
Joined by activists from across the globe, here is what we did to ensure visibility and action on HIV treatment access:
“I am so glad to be sitting next to all of you. We need new blood. Because if we disappear, people will die.”
On Sunday, July 22nd, 250 activists from around the world gathered in Amsterdam for ITPC’s Community Activist Summit pre-conference event. The Summit provided an opportunity for the group to reflect on the state of activism today and how to address our most critical problems in new and innovative ways. Check out the three key outcomes of the Summit here!
“Forget the Amsterdam city tour, the BAD PHARMA TOUR is the best in town!”
Organizers of the Treatment Networking Zone guided activists on an informative walking tour through pharmaceutical stands exposing the truths behind Big Pharma’s lies! You can bet your @$ they had a good time! Tours were given daily! See more photos on the Make Medicines Affordable Facebook page!
“We say this over and over again… TREATMENT EDUCATION is the critical first step to creating demand. Including for differentiated service delivery.”
ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste explained home why treatment education remains central in the fight against HIV at the satellite session on differentiated service delivery (DSD) hosted by IAS and WHO on Monday morning. Learn more about our work on DSD!
“We are disappointed in our lack of decision making in regards to our treatment access!”
Activists demanded access to dolutegravir (DTG) for women across the world during the WHO satellite session introducing the new treatment guidelines and the role of DTG in first & second line treatment regimens. Learn more about the latest discussions around DTG.
“You know that saying ‘what you see is what you get’? That’s not the case with Big Pharma. Now we can see all the lies they’re hiding from everyone!”
Our Make Medicines Affordable campaign launched the augmented reality feature of the #PharmaLies app allowing conference delegates to scan & reveal facts in Gilead’s, ViiV’s, Abbott’s, and MSD’s booth.
“We are all going to build bridges this week. Don’t let your bridge be a bridge to no where!”
ITPC Activist Development Programme veteran Mercy Ngulube delivered powerful remarks at the opening ceremony reminding everyone that our activism is our responsibility! Youth leaders are proudly leading the way in creating new and bigger spaces in the response. Learn more about our Activist Development Programme!
“If we are honest with ourselves, equity in access to optimal treatment is the elephant in the room.”
ITPC’s Wame Mosime co-moderated the highly anticipated session on safety of dolutegravir (DTG) in pregnancy which presented the late breaking findings, interpretations and implications for treatment access and programming. Get all the latest information from the panel’s presentations here!
Argentina is now classified as a HIGH INCOME COUNTRY. But we are facing an economic crisis that doesn’t prioritize buying ARVs or other medicines.”
Lorena di Giano of FGEP in Argentina spoke at ITPC’s press conference, Cutting Through the Noise at AIDS 2018, explaining how political agendas impact access to medicines, one of the major themes from the Community Activist Summit.
“We cannot talk about HIV without talking about TB. And if we’re really worried about saving lives, we cannot ignore TB drug resistance.”
Activists speak frankly about HIV and TB during a session at the Treatment Networking Zone on monitoring HIV drug resistance (HIVDR). Currently, ITPC’s Regional Community Treatment Observatory in West Africa (RCTO-WA) is trying to scale up indicators associated with HIVDR. Learn more at www.WatchWhatMatters.org
“The best investment you can make is in communities. Full stop.”
ITPC’s Wame Mosime moderates a oral abstract session on community financing for a sustained response that showcased data and experiences on current funding trends, building sustainability, and community entrepreneurship.
“The time for action is now and without scaling up the prevention effort, the number of deaths in the Middle East and North Africa will rise!”
ITPC MENA hosted four sessions in the ‘Ending AIDS crisis in MENA’ networking zone covering a range of issues — including innovative social media outreach campaigns, HIV and the law, HPV, and community advocacy for malaria elimination. See more on their Facebook page!
Communities are bringing data and monitoring what’s happening. This needs to be recognized and used by governments to fix their systems.”
Treatment activists discussed the transition to new ARVs during a session in the GNP+ networking zone. ITPCru’s Sergei Golovin shared insights from their recently launched report monitoring availability of ARVs in 7 countries in EECA. Read the full report here!
“You have the responsibility to invest in communities and stop paying lip service to it.”
ITPC’s Trisa Taro presented the key messages and outcomes from Sunday’s Community Activist Summit during the special session on pre-conference report backs. See all the special moments from the #ActivistSummit here!
“We need to stop thinking of prevention on one side and treatment on the other. We have to think through the entire continuum as one.”
ITPC’s Othoman Mellouk spoke on a session about the politics of PrEP reminding everyone that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach. Learn more about our work around PrEP!
Let’s keep in mind that the benefits of data surveillance can have unintended consequences that impact the lives of communities.”
ITPC’s Solange Baptiste shared the community perspective at a special session on monitoring new ARVs hosted by WHO. The session focused on toxicity monitoring to inform treatment policies.
To see more of the action, check out our Facebook and Twitter #AIDS2018
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3 Takeaways from the Community Activist Summit
On Sunday, July 22nd, ahead of AIDS 2018, 250 activists from around the world gathered in Amsterdam for the Community Activist Summit.
The Summit brought together people living with HIV and key population activists, civil society and community advocates, program implementers, government officials, and other stakeholders interested in and seeking to influence a global, community-led HIV advocacy agenda.
The purpose was to share stories, expose harsh truths, and challenge ourselves to create a vision for systematic change that isn’t influenced or dominated by the donors and geopolitical forces that continue to impose their agenda on the communities they claim to serve.
Parts were nostalgic – in celebration of the fact that it was the 15th anniversary of ITPC. And parts were challenging – to answer the hard questions we never have time to discuss: How can we increase solidarity when we’re all fighting for the same pot of money? To what extent are the issues communities faces are created by ourselves and which are created by donors? What keeps parallel movements – like HIV and TB – from being better connected?”
Over the course of the day, we reflected on how far the HIV movement has come, the state of activism today, and how to address our most critical problems in new and innovative ways.Three themes and issues emerged from the intense discussions.
1. Empowering communities through treatment education and knowledge building remains more critical than ever.
We need to get back to basics. Ensuring that people have access to information, understand that information and what it means for their health, and are empowered to use that information in advocating for their needs.
We say this time and time again, BUT YOU CANNOT ASK FOR WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW EXISTS.
2. We need to change the systems that continuously keep diagnostics and life-saving medicines unavailable and unaffordable.
We cannot give up on public ownership of essential medicines and health care. These are human rights and, therefore, public goods. In a perfect world, these should be FREE.
But we know we don’t live in a perfect world. And until we do..
We need to reduce the cost of interventions so that they’re available, affordable and accessible.
In many countries, more 95% of HIV budgets goes to buying medicines. Leaving nothing for other prevention and care services. Reducing the cost of drugs allows us to make huge health savings that can then be invested in other community needs.3. We need to transition from a financing model that allows donors – instead of communities – to drive the agenda of the HIV response.
We need to re-acknowledge that AIDS is political. And, therefore, the choices around where money goes are also political. We can’t rely on governments to prioritize the most vulnerable and marginalized groups of the epidemic. Communities have a role to play in the way funds get allocated.
We need to demand for a seat at the table and have a voice in the conversations where these decisions get made.
But most importantly we need to come up with a different model so that we as communities are self-sustained. We know that so long as we have donor-driven financing, we will have a donor-driven agenda. Our global health architecture needs to change. And that means a shift to community-driven financing.It is time to act!
A world of better health is not a dream but we have to come together to make it a reality.
We hope you’ll join us in the fight.
If you want a full recap of what happened at the #ActivistSummit, watch our report back session at #AIDS2018
Don’t worry, we know you’re busy. It’s only 5 mins long! ?
See more of the action on Facebook and Twitter #ActivistSummit !
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Cutting Through the Noise at AIDS 2018
On Tuesday, 24 July 2018, ITPC hosted a press conference at AIDS 2018 to build on the momentum of the Community Activist Summit to cut through the noise and unpack the issues behind some of the most divisive questions today. Download Cutting Through the Noise of AIDS 2018 press release (PDF) here or read the entire text below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – 24 July 2018 – Throughout the AIDS response, conferences have been notoriously plagued with rhetoric too far removed from the lived realities of people living with HIV.
This year, however, in the midst of one of the world’s biggest gatherings on HIV and AIDS, hundreds of activists gathered to expose harsh truths, and debate the steps forward toward systematic change.
On Sunday, 22 July 2018, ahead of the 22nd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018), over 250 activists from around the world gathered in Amsterdam for the Community Activist Summit.
“The world has changed, and so activism has had to change. Today, we have an opportunity to share stories of our journey and challenge ourselves to create a vision that isn’t influenced or dominated by the donors and geopolitical forces that continue to imposes their agenda on the communities they claim to serve,” explains Solange Baptiste, Executive Director of the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), the global HIV treatment organization that hosted the Summit.
The Summit brought together people living with HIV and key population activists, civil society and community advocates, program implementers, government officials, and all stakeholders interested in and seeking to influence a global, community-led HIV advocacy agenda.
Over the course of the one-day event, activists and allies reflected on how far the HIV movement has come, the state of activism today, and how to address our most critical problems in innovative ways. Leaders reflected that despite all the progress made over the last fifteen years, communities are still dealing with the same issues that stop people from accessing the medicines they need to live.
“It has been 30 years since I was diagnosed. And now my fellows in Venezuela are facing the same fears I faced back then. Eighty thousand people are without treatment. There’s no CD4 [testing]. No viral load [test]. There’s NO FOOD! We are in the worst AIDS crisis of our time,” said Jesus Aguais, founder of Aid for AIDS.
“I am coming from a country where we talk about an end to AIDS, but we have an estimated 600 new infections EVERY DAY,” said Anele Yawa, secretary-general of Treatment Access Campaign (TAC) in South Africa.
Despite all these challenges, hope is not lost. The HIV movement continues to be fueled by the passion, drive, and lived realities of community activists who know that progress today requires perseverance, solidarity, and creativity.
Key themes and issues emerged from the intense discussions, namely:- The importance of empowering communities through treatment education and knowledge building;
- The urgency to change the systems that continuously keep diagnostics and life-saving medicines unavailable and unaffordable; and
- The critical need to transition from a financing model that allows donors – instead of communities – to drive the agenda of the HIV response.
The movement must also be refueled by fresh faces and new alliances. Young activists continue to enter the space and embrace this growing mandate.
“We need to mobilize communities and support them – no matter where they are, from Fiji to Venezuela, all people deserve the basic right to health. The fight must go on!” explained Baptiste.
Building on the momentum of the Community Activist Summit, ITPC will grow it’s Activist Development Programme to do just that.# # #
Download Cutting Through the Noise of AIDS 2018 press release (PDF) here.
About ITPC
The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) is a worldwide coalition of people living with HIV and community advocates working to achieve universal access to optimal HIV treatment of those in need. Formed in 2003 by a group of 125 HIV activists from 65 countries at a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, ITPC actively advocates for treatment access in eight regions across the globe. ITPC believes that the fight for HIV treatment remains one of the most significant global social justice issues. For more information about ITPC, please visit www.itpcglobal.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/itpcglobal
Twitter: www.twitter.com/itpcglobal
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/itpcglobal
Join the Fight – Celebrating HIV Activism Then and Now: https://youtu.be/TxIHMpCIt9E
About ITPC’s Activist Development Programme
The Activist Development Program (ADP) is a new initiative created by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition aimed at equipping activist around the world to fight for better health. The ADP helps activists gain the technical knowledge and leadership skills needed to be part of the next generation of activists fighting for better health; build relationships with stakeholders, gatekeepers and influencers across local, national, and global levels to bring about change; overcome geographical and population-based silos and increase dialogue and intersectionality of social justice through organic peer-to-peer learning exchanges; analyze environmental and structural barriers to health and justice and devise advocacy strategies to achieve needed change for better; and take ownership of a larger role in activism within local contexts. For more information about the Activist Development Programme, please visit www.itpcglobal.org/adp
For press kit, pictures, and further inquiries, please contact:
Trisa Taro, ITPC Program Impact Manager
ttaro@itpcglobal.com
+1 909 720 0324 -
From Cape Town to Amsterdam: What 15 Years of ITPC Means Today
WATCH OUR NEW VIDEO – “JOIN THE FIGHT”
ITPC was born in 2003 when a group of 125 treatment activists from around the world, including 65 countries of the Global South, gathered in Cape Town, South Africa to demand a rapid and community-driven increase in access to HIV treatment for the millions in need. The goal of the four-day meeting was to identify ways to strengthen regional treatment education and advocacy efforts to pave the way for the realization of then-newly introduced “3 by 5” Initiative. Fifteen years later, ITPC continues to believe that investing in communities is vital to expand access to quality HIV treatment globally.
Investing in communities and strengthening their capacity to demand, monitor, and work with others is more relevant than ever in the face of today’s challenges. In 2015, there were 2.1 million new HIV infections worldwide, adding up to a total of 36.7 million people living with HIV. Approximately 54% of them are in need of treatment, and many do not know their HIV status. Stigma and human rights violations prevent people living with HIV from accessing quality healthcare. The treatment coverage gap is as high as 83% in the Middle East and North Africa, 79% in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 59% in Asia and the Pacific and 72% in West and Central Africa.
Despite real progress, several countries and communities still lack access to optimal treatment, due to social and economic barriers among other reasons. The implementation of the 2013 WHO Guidelines has not been simple, and we are a long way from UNAIDS 90-90-90 objectives if current trends persist.
In 2018, ITPC will be celebrating the 15-year anniversary of the International Treatment Preparedness Summit (ITPS). On this anniversary, we want to seize this moment – both to recognize how far we have come and – most importantly – to create a vision for the work still left to do in the HIV movement.
Our new video “Join the Fight” does just that – reminding us of the some of our biggest milestones and sharing the reflections of some of the movement’s fiercest activists.
CREDITS
Executive Producer
Trisa Taro
Director/Producer
Timothy Webster
Researcher
Aiyana Gane
Graphic Designer
Logan Olausen
Assistant Editor
Fin Kinsella
Archive
The Media Hysteria of Aids (Barbara Hammer)
Stiff Sheets (John C Goss)
The Aids Epidemic (John Greyson) -
Join ITPC at AIDS 2018!
Join us at the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2018) in Amsterdam from 22 – 28 July 2018.
We are co-hosting and participating in over 20 sessions throughout the week.
Don’t have a lot of time? Check out our downloadable flyer (PDF) for the ones you won’t want to miss — including our Community Activist Summit on Sunday, 22 July!
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SATURDAY, 21 JULY
- Quantifying Civil Society Contributions towards 90-90-90 | Pre-Conference | 11:00 – 12:00 | Elicium Ballroom | Hosted by IAPAC, UNAIDS, GNP+, and IAS. Featuring ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste speaking.
SUNDAY, 22 JULY
- Community Activist Summit | Pre-Conference | 10:00 – 16:45 | G106-107 | Using innovative tech-powered panel discussions and interactive dialogue sessions, activists will strategize approaches and develop concrete next steps needed to effectively advocate for the right to health for ALL. Follow along and join the action on Facebook and Twitter using #ActivistSummit!
- U=U 2018: Celebrate, Activate, and Implement! | Pre-Conference | Featuring ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste as a panelist.
- Meeting the 90-90-90 Targets: Faster and Better | Pre-Conference | Hosted by the Joep Lange Institute and featuring ITPC Director of Global Programs and Advocacy Wame Mosime as a panelist.
- HIV Population-based Surveys: Updates and Insights | Pre-Conference | GV Session Room 2 | Hosted by ICAP and PHIA and featuring ITPC Community Monitoring Lead Alain Manouan.
MONDAY, 23 JULY
- It’s Time to Test and Treat Differently | Satellite Session | 8:00 – 10:00 | Hall 11B | Compare and contrast differentiated service delivery along the HIV care cascade from countries and communities. Hosted by IAS & WHO.
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Differentiated service delivery 2018: Innovations, best practices, and lessons learned | Satellite Session | 17:00 – 19:00 | Hosted by ICAP and moderated by ITPC Director of Global Programs and Advocacy Wame Mosime.
TUESDAY, 24 JULY
- The role of civil society and donors in times of crisis: Venezuela | Satellite Session | 7:00 – 8:30 | E105-108 | Hosted by ICASO and co-chaired by ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste.
- U=U Crafting supportive public health policy from the scientific evidence to support community action | Workshop | 11:00 – 12:30 | E102 | Hosted by U=U and Prevention Access Campaign. Featuring ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste as a panelist.
- Safety of Dolutegravir in Pregnancy: Late Breaking Findings, Interpretations, and Implications | Symposia Session | 11:00 – 12:30 | Elicium 2 | Hosted by IAS and chaired by ITPC’s Wame Mosime
- Cutting Through the Noise of AIDS 2018 | Press Conference | 13:00 – 13:45 | G109 | Join us as we cut through the noise and unpack the issues behind some of the most divisive questions facing the fight against HIV today.
- A Free Trade Agreement and HIV Walk into a Bar… | Workshop | 14:30 – 17:00 | G102-103 | Learn the key features of FTAs and how advocacy by PLHIV networks have impacted such negotiations
- Survival Strategies in the dawn of a new fiscally constrained era of the HIV response | Workshop | 16:30 – 18:00 | Global Village Session Room 2 | Featuring ITPC’s Alain Manouan speaking
- Rapid access to new technology and reaching the unreached | 18:00-21:30 | F002-004 | ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste speaking on “Global health and impact on individual people’s life: What does delayed access really mean?”
Wednesday, 25 JULY
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When promise meets reality: Debating the future of CD4 and viral load testing | Satellite Session | 7:00 – 8:30 | Hall 11A | Featuring ITPC Exeuctive Director Solange Baptiste speaking on community response and perspectives on CD4 and VL demand, use and scale-up.
- Community Monitoring & Proxy Indicators for HIV Resistance | Community Consultation | 11:00 – 12:30 | Treatment Networking Zone, Global Village | How can communities monitor HIV resistance? Share your thoughts during this discussion hosted in collaboration with WHO.
- Reigniting the fight for access to medicines: Outcomes and recommendations from the 2018 global summit on intellectual property and access to medicines (GSIPA2M2018) | Abstract Poster | Presented by Othoman Mellouk
Thursday, 26 JULY
- The Politics of PrEP | Satellite Session | 11:00 – 12:30 | Elicium 2 | Featuring ITPC IP and Access to Medicines Lead Othoman Mellouk speaking on striking the balance between ‘treat all’ and PrEP where we are ‘not treating all’.
- Meeting the Challenge: Community Financing for a Sustained Response | Oral Abstract Session | 13:00 – 14:00 | E102 | Hear the latest in domestic financing and sustainability. Chaired by ITPC’s Wame Mosime.
- Young People At the Centre – Community Mobilization for Youth-Friendly HIV Services | Workshop | 14:30 – 17:00 | Emerald Room | Come learn how we can overcome the barriers YPLHIV face in achieving good health outcomes!
- Bending the curve: Modernizing HIV prevention through balanced curation of interventions | Symposia Session | 16:30 – 18:00 | Auditorium | Chaired by ITPC Executive Director Solange Baptiste.
FRIDAY, 27 JULY
- AIDS 2018 Pre-Conference Report Back: Community Activist Summit | Rapporteur Session | 12:45 – 14:00 | The Forum | Did you miss the #ActivistSummit? Don’t worry, we’ll be doing a full recap of everything that happened!
Can’t make it? Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to see all the action as it happens!
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What Community Activism Can Achieve: ITPC’s Annual Review 2017
ITPC is proud to share its 2017 Annual Review, titled What Community Activism Can Achieve. The report highlights our successes, challenges, and operational capacity in 2017, and shows what investments in community activism can do.
You can read the online summary here and the full annual review (PDF) here.
What we achieved was done so in a harsh environment, with depleting resources and a small, but dedicated team. It wouldn’t have been possible without the support of our amazing and progressive donors who know the value and impact of strengthening the capacity of affected communities. Our work investing in communities is more relevant than ever. By educating people living with HIV about their rights, which is at the core of all our programs, we light a fire that fuels a demand for justice. We build a spirit of activism that grows out of the rage of knowing that we have been short-changed by our governments, the duty bearers, who are meant to uphold our right to health and life.Download the report What Community Activism Can Achieve (PDF, 3.9MB)
Check out some of the highlights here:
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Advocates Publish Commentary on Expanding Treatment Access for Viral Hepatitis C
On 2 April 2018, an in-depth commentary on practical actions that can help increase access to HCV direct-action antivirals (DAAs) was published in a special issue of the Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS).
The article – titled Treatment advocate tactics to expand access to antiviral therapy for HIV and viral hepatitis C in low- to high-income settings: making sure no one is left behind – was written by a group of advocates from Medecins du Monde, Initiative for Access, Medicines and Knowledge (I-MAK), the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), Alliance for Public Health, FixHepC, European AIDS Treatment Group, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), and the International AIDS Society.
The article presents actions from the HIV experience that treatment advocates can use to expand access to DAAs, including new research and development (R&D) paradigms; compassionate use, named-patient and early access programmes; use of TRIPS flexibilities such as compulsory licenses and patent oppositions; and parallel importation via buyers’ clubs. The article demonstrates how these approaches can increase access to antiviral therapy for people living with HIV and viral hepatitis in low-, middle- and high-income settings.
ITPC looks forward to continuing to make contributions to this body of work.Download the full article for free (PDF, English).
Learn more about ITPC’s work on increasing treatment access around the world.
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A World of Better Health is Not a Dream – ITPC's New Strategic Plan 2018-2020
As ITPC, we remain committed to that same urgency and solidarity that led us to a united global, regional, national and most importantly grassroots action almost two decades ago. A world of better health is not a dream, join us in the fight to that vision a reality!
Today, we are proud to share our new Strategic Plan for 2018-2020.Download ITPC’s Strategic Plan 2018-2020
ITPC was formed in 2003 by a group of 125 HIV treatment activists from 65 countries at a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa. At that time, no more than 500,000 people had access to HIV treatment. The cost of treatment was over $10,000 per person per year. Very few entities had the knowledge and capacity for treatment advocacy. Today, more than 21 million people have started HIV treatment. In the world’s poorest countries, the cost of effective treatment has been reduced to less than $100 per person per year. Today, thousands of advocates have made broader access to better treatment a fundamental goal of their work.
Moving forward, ITPC will continue to invest in the key driver of past successes: the energy, skills, and informed action of people living with HIV working together for equity in medicines and health.
Through this strategic plan, ITPC recommits to:- Increase the availability and affordability of essential medicines, with particular focus on access to life-saving medicines for HIV, TB, viral hepatitis, and other illnesses;
- Educate and train people to demand the health services they need;
- Expand community-based health care monitoring and advocacy; and
- Hold governments, donors and other authorities accountable to human rights and public health.
No one organization or sector can improve the health and political systems. This is a critical moment in history for the emergence of a unified global community-led movement of activists who can change systems and make them work for us all.
Find out how we plan to fight for a world of better health.
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Raising the Profile of Community Monitoring & Community Engagement at AFRAVIH 2018
This week, 4-7 April 2018, ITPC Global, ITPC West Africa, and ITPC MENA attended the 2018 Conférence Internationale Francophone VIH/Hepatites (AFRAVIH) in Bordeaux, France, helping to ensure treatment access issues – particularly as they affect key populations – were visible at the conference.
In particular, ITPC helped raise the profile of community monitoring and community engagement:
ITPC Global presented preliminary outcomes from the Missing the Target 12 (MTT12) project, which supports community-led monitoring of treatment access issues among people who use drugs in Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan. MTT12 is part of the Watch What Matters initiative and works alongside the Regional Community Treatment Observatory in West Africa (RCTO-WA) to empower communities in carrying out evidence-based advocacy.