The EMPOWER study offered oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to young women, in combination with a supportive programme to address stigma and gender-based violence. In addition, half of the participants were invited to participate in empowerment clubs.
Biomedical interventions
STRIVE has developed two meta-narratives to draw together the evidence and distil the key messages for different audiences. Biomedical Interventions and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Biomedical Interventions narrative is aimed at an HIV audience and focuses on how structural drivers impact on HIV prevention and treatment strategies.
Exchange with the national PrEP demonstration project. MITU, Mwanza, Tanzania
Read the full impact case study here
The EMPOWER study offered oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to young women, in combination with a supportive programme to address stigma and gender-based violence. In addition, half of the participants were invited to participate in empowerment clubs.
Evidence brief: The EMPOWER study: An evaluation of a combination HIV prevention intervention including oral PrEP for adolescent girls and young women in South Africa and Tanzania
This evidence brief provides a summary and presents the key findings from the EMPOWER Study, conducted in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Mwanza, Tanzania. The study asked:
Is it feasible, acceptable and safe to integrate responses to gender-based violence and harmful norms into an HIV prevention programme offering pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) aged 16-24 years?
EMPOWER: A combination HIV prevention intervention that includes oral PrEP for adolescent girls and young women in South Africa and Tanzania
This oral presentation was originally given by Sinead Delany Moretlwe, at the EHPSA satellite session at AIDS2018. It presents results from the EMPOWER trial.
Girl-centred HIV prevention
This presentation was originally given by Sinead Delany-Moretlwe, Wits RHI, at the International AIDS Conference in July 2018.
Technical brief: Biomedical and structural prevention: STRIVE in the era of 'cascades'
Despite advances, an unmet need remains for HIV prevention, both through primary prevention through treatment for HIV negative individuals and secondary prevention through treatment for HIV positive individuals. This need is urgent in key populations such as sex workers, men who have sex with me, prisoners and people who use drugs, transgender people and adolescent girls and young women in sub-Saharan Africa.
A number of direct biomedical mechanisms have proven efficacy in preventing transmission at the biological level:
Structural factors and the HIV prevention and treatment cascades: where are we? - Sinead Delany-Moretlwe and James Hargreaves
There remains an unmet need for HIV prevention, particularly among key populations including adolescent girls and young women in Africa. The treatment cascade framework, and its associated 90:90:90 targets, has galvanised action to expand testing and treatment for prevention. The prevention cascade framework hopes to do the same for primary prevention, mapping the steps needed to achieve high coverage of efficacious prevention tools. Both frameworks illustrate how ART-based HIV prevention offers real promise for reducing HIV incidence at a population level. However, challenges remain.