WORLD AIDS DAY - YEAR IN REVIEW

December 1st marks World AIDS Day. For 32 years, this day has provided an opportunity for the world to reflect on the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic. In 2019, 38 million people were living with HIV/AIDS, and 1.7 million people were newly infected. Though 2020 drew HIV researchers to expand their work to address the COVID-19 pandemic, our HIV efforts have not ceased. To the contrary, the ACTG has continued to advance HIV research and clinical trials amidst the challenges of initial research study closures, social distancing, acquiring proper PPE, and quarantining. We are pleased to announce that the ACTG was re-funded for a new grant cycle for seven years starting today, World AIDS Day 2020. In this new grant cycle, our goals are to continue our efforts to cure HIV and Hepatitis B, shorten treatment for TB and find new therapies for drug-resistant TB, and test novel antiretroviral therapies and test strategies to improve long-term outcomes for people with HIV.

In December’s newsletter, we reflect on the progress we have made over the past year in HIV research, despite the challenges posed by COVID-19. We highlight some of ACTG’s major publications over the past year (although we sadly could not highlight all of the important publications from the ACTG in 2020 in this short newsletter, please click here to read more). Our network has found balance among the chaos and continues to instill hope in our community, despite overwhelming loss. We are grateful to everyone (investigators, site staff, community advisory board members) who has stepped up to the challenge and gone above and beyond for study participants. The strides we have made as a network keep us hopeful for the future of HIV/AIDS research.

More ACTG Newsletter articles here