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Africa
Welcome to Global Campaign for Microbicides in Africa!
About GCM in Africa:
Large-scale clinical trials of potential new HIV prevention tools (such as microbicides, PrEP, circumcision, etc.) have to be conducted in areas with high HIV incidence levels in order to obtain meaningful results. For this reason, most clinical trials are done in Africa especially in Southern and Eastern Africa where the infection rates are high.
The focus of GCM’s Africa programme is therefore to facilitate meaningful community involvement in the research process. As this concept is still new in most communities, the Africa programme focuses on social mobilisation and capacity building of civil society, community advocates and other stakeholders. Working with both new and existing partners, the Africa program endeavours to raise awareness of this research among organisations and advocates. Our goal is to build a broad base of well-informed community voices in support of HIV prevention research that responds as effectively as possible to women’s particular vulnerability to HIV and need for HIV prevention tools.
With staff in South Africa and Kenya, the Global Campaign is forging relationships in eastern and southern Africa with the women’s movements, sexual and reproductive health and rights organisations, the HIV/AIDS movement, health care worker organisations (including medical students, provider and research organisations), regulatory authorities, academic institutions and various structures within the governments. To contact the secretariat, please click here.
A FOCUS ON AFRICA
Mapping microbicide interest and advocacy efforts in East Africa
For three weeks in May and June 2008, the Global Campaign for Microbicides and the African Microbicides Advocacy Group (AMAG) collaborated on conducting a mapping exercise in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya to determine the needs of advocates engaged in, or interested in becoming involved with advocacy for woman-initiated HIV prevention tools. The exercise sought to gain insights into accessibility of the female condom as a woman-initiated HIV prevention tool and its potential use among women in the region; and the interest, knowledge gaps and technical support needs among NGOs in East Africa to enable them engage in advocacy for microbicides.
The goal of this exercise was to familiarise target NGOs, relevant government officials, clinical trial sites and other stakeholders with GCM’s and AMAG’s mission, as well as projects and opportunities like the newly introduced ‘Microbicide Essentials’ course and the ‘Vaginal Health Training Module’ under development. The mapping exercise also sought to identify common areas of interest that could be strengthened through the provision of capacity building services and training. 
Click here to view the full report
Building the skills of civil society advocates on new HIV prevention research in Kenya
On October 16th – 17th, 2008, civil society organisations gathered at Swara Safari Hotel in Nairobi under the auspices of the Kenya AIDS NGOs Consortium (KANCO) to update their knowledge on the HIV prevention clinical trials going on in Kenya. GCM and the Kenya AIDS Vaccines Initiative collaborated with KANCO to provide technical input into the process.
GCM’s East Africa Coordinator, Pauline Irungu gave an overview of the HIV prevention research landscape in Kenya highlighting the role that the country was playing in hosting clinical trials for microbicides, HIV vaccines, Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and male circumcision trials that showed efficacy of about 60% for men engaging in vaginal sex. She also led a discussion on the recent developments in the microbicides field and facilitated a process through which civil society members identified key advocacy messages to relay to their constituents. .
The meeting culminated in civil society members present developing action plans and affirming their commitment to advocacy for the HIV prevention research field despite the challenges facing it.
A Positive enabling environment for clinical trials: the case of South Africa
In September 2008, the South African Minister for Health announced that the government’s focus will be on HIV prevention, although the entry point for most of the activities will be the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT). This provides even greater opportunities for engaging the civil society in work on multiple prevention fronts; including the female condoms, male circumcision and other prevention research. Indeed, this public declaration – occurring in the context of the October 2008 AIDS Vaccine conference at which the government underscored its support for AIDS vaccine research -- is a strong example of the environment that the Global Campaign is working with others to create and sustain.
We invite you to join our extensive global network of advocates throughout the world.
ACTION! Expanding Access to Female Condoms in AfricaMeeting participants (clockwise from bottom left): Margaret Muganwa (SWAA International/Uganda), Cecelia Mhiti (Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination, Zimbabwe), Anna Forbes (GCM), Anna-Colletor Penduka (Women’s AIDS Support Network, Zimbabwe) and Clementine Mumba (Treatment Action and Literacy Campaign, Zambia) |
Reality in Africa:
Africa has borne the brunt of the epidemic with over 60% of the world’s HIV/AIDS infected people. The devastating effects of the disease are apparent on all sectors of the society affecting in particular the most vulnerable groups especially women. The epidemic has taken on the face of a woman with 59% of the total infected persons being women. The vulnerability of women continues to be fueled by myriad factors including social and cultural practices and economic factors. An array of interventions has been put in place to counter this trend but has not met women’s need for protection as the existing ABC (abstinence, being faithful and condom use) strategy is not a reality for most women. The search for microbicides and other user-initiated prevention methods holds a promise to put the power over AIDS in the hands of women. Microbicides trials are underway in different countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa among others. This therefore calls for increased efforts in facilitating community involvement in microbicides research and development processes.
