Today, nearly one third of the global population are youth ages 10-29. Their voices and skills help propel USAID’s development work and create positive change in their communities and around the world. In celebration of the first anniversary of USAID’s updated Youth in Development Policy, USAID invited youth leaders and USAID leadership to talk about the importance of youth engagement in the health sector.
Continue ReadingAuthor: Aubrey Weber
THE FUTURE OF PrEP: IMPLEMENTATION STUDIES TO GUIDE THE ROLLOUT OF NEW PrEP PRODUCTS
As new PrEP products move out of clinical trials and toward market entry, implementation research has a pivotal role to play in guiding the introduction and scale-up of these new products in real-world service delivery settings.
Continue ReadingCELEBRATING ONE YEAR OF MOSAIC’S NEXTGEN SQUAD
This month marks the first anniversary of the formation of MOSAIC’s NextGen Squad. Today, we celebrate their first year as a team by highlighting just a few of their many accomplishments and sharing some of their reflections on the future of MOSAIC and HIV prevention.
Continue ReadingCONFERENCE REFLECTIONS: TWO CROI “ROOKIES” DRAW INSPIRATION FROM CROI AT 30
CROI is a forum for scientists and clinical investigators to present, discuss, and critique their investigations into the epidemiology and biology of human retroviruses and associated diseases, including HIV and AIDS. It was the 30th year of the conference, but our first time attending. In this post, we reflect on what we learned and how we might apply key takeaways to our work on MOSAIC.
Continue ReadingCHAMPIONING CHOICE IN A MULTI-PRODUCT HIV PREVENTION MARKET
New products, including the dapivirine vaginal ring and injectable cabotegravir, have been approved in several countries, and more biomedical prevention products are in development. As the catalog of HIV prevention products expands, so too does the conversation about the importance of upholding choice to optimize the benefits for potential PrEP users.
Continue ReadingTHE GEN-N CAMPAIGN: YOUNG PEOPLE LEAD THE WAY TO AN HIV-FREE NIGERIA
Gen-N celebrates the brave choice to take action toward an HIV-negative generation. Everyone can be a Gen-N hero by supporting young people to access health services such as HIV testing and PrEP, celebrating youth-friendly health care workers, and listening to young people’s concerns without judgment.
Continue ReadingLOCAL PARTNERSHIPS: PREPARING TO SUPPORT SUSTAINED ACCESS AND EFFECTIVE USE OF HIV PREVENTION PRODUCTS
The success of efforts to introduce new pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) methods for HIV prevention, such as the PrEP ring and injectable CAB PrEP, will also rely on local partners. That’s why one of MOSAIC’s five strategic objectives is dedicated to strengthening local partner capacity to design and implement high-quality product introduction activities and research.
Continue ReadingCHANGING THE DYNAMIC: HOW THE HIV PREVENTION AMBASSADOR TRAINING PACKAGE IS ENHANCING YOUTH ENGAGEMENT IN ZIMBABWE
The HIV Prevention Ambassador Training Package is designed to support the meaningful engagement of youth “Ambassadors” in helping adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain free from HIV. Recognizing young people as full partners in HIV prevention is a key step toward equalizing the response to the epidemic — today’s World AIDS Day theme and call to action.
Continue ReadingPARENTS, PARTNERS, AND PEERS: THE ROLE OF INFLUENCERS IN ADOLESCENT GIRLS’ AND YOUNG WOMEN’S PrEP USE
We know that adolescent girls and young women live complex lives full of important relationships that shape the decisions they make. Yet too often efforts to generate demand for PrEP fail to reach beyond the individual user to her support system—those trusted people in her life who she leans on when making important choices. But demand generation for PrEP is evolving.
Continue ReadingPrEP-IT: COUNTRIES EMBRACE A DATA-INFORMED APPROACH TO SETTING PrEP TARGETS
PrEP-it — launched in 2019 as a Microsoft Excel-based tool for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) programs and then as a more user-friendly online tool in 2021 — had been used in only a handful of countries prior to August 2022 to set targets for PrEP coverage and forecast commodity needs. Given the response to two recent workshops held in Lusaka, Zambia, that is changing now.
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