Department of Health and Human Services, Region IV, to provide assistance and support to its recently organized Black Treatment Advocates Network (BTAN), who will be sponsoring PrEP forums and workshops in approximately sixteen cities around the country. The Institute is confident that BTAN will help fulfill its critical mission as numbered in Light at the End of the Tunnel. The report proposes five “Strategic Pillars” which include: (1) Ensuring that at least ninety-five percent of Black Americans living with HIV know their HIV status. (2) Eliminate gaps in the HIV treatment cascade for Black Americans living with HIV. (3) Deliver high-impact HIV prevention services to all Black Americans at risk of HIV. (4) Invest in strategic HIV-related research to accelerate the end of AIDS in Black America. (5) Build the capacity needed in Black communities to accelerate the end of AIDS in Black America.
“We’re still not having enough of a conversation about how to get to the endgame,” warns Wilson. “We talk about an AIDS-free generation and we talk about ending the AIDS epidemic but we are not having specific conversations; a work plan. What do we need to do? When do we need to do it? And, who needs to do it? Right now we’re having all these theoretical and polemic conversations; enough talking already, let’s take action.” One of those very specific and strategic conversations Wilson feels is crucial in addressing the alarming rise of HIV incidence among the Black MSM community is viral suppression through the implementation of a robust PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) treatment and adherence plan.
38
“Certainly, people need to understand the importance of PrEP: Who are the best candidates, how do you get the best outcomes, and what are the risks? I think it is important that we begin to educate people about PrEP. By itself, it is not a panacea. It is an additional tool in our tool kit. People are so desperate to find a silver bullet and when something seems not to be that silver bullet, they lose sight of its proper role. That’s why we focus on raising the HIV science literacy in our communities. PrEP is one of those tools that we have to better fight AIDS.” As part of the Black AIDS Institute’s outreach, this National Black HIV/ AIDS Awareness Day (February 7) they have partnered with HPTN and the U.S.
In Wilson’s “Welcome to 2014” he refrains from any finger-wagging rhetoric at Healthcare.gov’s initial problems but instead capitalizes on the plan’s overall benefits and what the Affordable Care Act could mean for people living with HIV/AIDS. Rather than poking holes in its widely reported implementation pitfalls, Wilson, as always, offers optimism. “We should direct our attention toward the opportunities presented by this new plan—not its problems. Today, over 2 million Americans, who previously didn’t have access to healthcare, now do: No more pre-existing conditions exclusions, and no more annual and lifetime caps.” In order to effectively derail the course of the epidemic Wilson elaborates on the importance of the fifth pillar. “What we know now is that there is an insufficient number of folk in our communities that [fully] understands biomedical intervention. Part of this ‘capacity needed’ is for people to have a better understanding of what biomedical interventions do and how they work. [As I mentioned earlier] we are focusing on raising the science literacy A&U • FEBRUARY 2014