Study underway to inform roll-out of new HIV prevention products

Talent Gore

THE Ministry of Health and Child Care is teaming up with Pangea Zimbabwe AIDS Trust to lead the Catalyst study that will inform the roll-out of new HIV prevention products nationwide.

The study, a collaboration with Maximising Options to Advance Informed Choice (MOSAIC), aims to provide young women with PrEP options, including oral PrEP, the PrEP ring, and CAB PrEP, also known as injectable PrEP.

The objective of the study is to empower women to select the best prevention method that corresponds with their lifestyle.

The study will run up to 2026, and lessons learned will inform the national roll-out of these HIV prevention products beyond the six sites already working on the project.

The ZIMPHIA 2020 survey shows that Zimbabwean women are three times more likely to contract HIV than their male counterparts, so this study may help to bridge this gap.

By February 2024, the third HIV prevention method will be introduced in Zimbabwe.

Speaking during a tour organised by Health Communicators Forum in Chitungwiza yesterday, CATALYST principal investigator, Dr Emily Gwavava, said women were bearing the brunt of the HIV pandemic.

“What we realised as the Maximising Options to Advance Informed Choice for HIV Prevention project that is doing the Catalyst study is that our women are bearing the brunt of the HIV pandemic,” she said.

“I think we have all heard of the term feminised epidemic in our context in Zimbabwe, so we are bringing two additional HIV prevention methods in addition to what is already existing.

“We are going to introduce the dapivirine (private parts) ring and the long-acting injectable cabotegravir,” said Dr Gwavava.

She said the lessons learnt from this study will be packaged and used to inform the Ministry of Health and Child Care what they need to be aware of.

“We looked at the National HIV Survey (ZIMPHIA 2020) results and they showed that women who are 15 years and above are three times more likely to be infected by HIV than men who are 15 years and above.

“We found that there are a lot of new infections, so we talk about our adolescents, girls and young women. When you look at their data separately, they are five to eight times more likely to be infected between the ages of 16 to 24 than the males in that same age group.

“We’ve also been seeing a lot of women who register their pregnancies HIV negative, but then when they finish breastfeeding, they are HIV positive and yet we have these prevention products within our facilities, so we just thought that it would be great to close that gap of new infections between the women and men in Zimbabwe.”