An advocate for global health equity for decades, ICAP Global Director Wafaa El-Sadr joined two colleagues to write a New York Times Op-Ed to point out that unless vaccines with high efficacy can be quickly manufactured and made available broadly, we are at risk of failing to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Viruses know no borders. Protecting Americans from COVID-19 requires protecting all people from COVID-19. We cannot end the COVID-19 pandemic until everyone, across the world, can access highly effective vaccines.”

Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA, founder and director of ICAP,
The New York Times, Jan. 12, 2021

El-Sadr calls for aggressive government action in the United States to increase manufacturing capacity of the high-quality vaccines that are already proven and to provide support for global distribution.  Reminding government leaders of the success of PEPFAR, created by President George W. Bush with guidance from NIAID director Anthony Fauci, which is estimated to have saved 19 million lives, El-Sadr and her colleagues suggest that the  Biden Administration should once again demonstrate what can be accomplished with generosity and partnership.

While engaging with urgent research to tackle COVID-19, ICAP’s Harlem Prevention Center (HPC) and Bronx Prevention Center (BPC) have continued their vital research to prevent HIV infection and work they are doing under the auspices of the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) – a worldwide collaborative for clinical trials that brings together investigators, ethicists, community members and other partners to develop and test the safety and efficacy of HIV interventions. Because of deep roots in the Bronx and Harlem communities, which have been among the hardest hit by the HIV epidemic in the United States, HPC and BPC’s participation in the trials helps to ensure that key populations that are part of these local communities are represented in global research efforts.

Rates of infection have been dropping worldwide, and these hopeful studies are designed to identify additional science-based strategies that can help to halt further transmission in marginalized populations both through new approaches to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as well as by creating a vaccine. HPTN 083, a PrEP study concluded in spring 2020 concluded that an injectable form of PrEP is far superior to daily oral medication in lowering HIV incidence among both cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men. Another PrEP study, HPTN 091 – also known as the I AM study – is assessing how to increase PrEP uptake among transgender women by combing PrEP with essential support services such as providing gender-affirming hormone therapy and peer health navigation.

The need for a safe and effective vaccine to prevent HIV remains urgent. In traditional vaccine studies, people are inoculated and then followed to see if their bodies will respond by making antibodies against HIV. A new idea for HIV prevention is to inject antibodies into people directly, rather than using a vaccine to trigger antibody production. ICAP has been part of the clinical trials for this new approach. Initial results from the Antibody Mediated Prevention Study (HPTN 085) demonstrated efficacy in protecting against certain strains of HIV). Researchers at HPC are also part of the ambitious Mosaico study, which is testing an investigational vaccine regime to prevent HIV. Also known at HVTN 706, this study is testing the efficacy of vaccines that are made from synthetic copies of HIV pieces – created in the laboratory – that cannot themselves cause HIV infection or AIDS. The study will enroll cisgender men and transgender people who have sex with cisgender men and/or transgender people.