Putting communities first in HIV Research with Yvette Raphael

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When Yvette Raphael walked into a stakeholder meeting in Kigali in 2019 and asked Gilead's lead researcher, "What are you going to do differently?", she was doing her job. As co-founder of Advocacy for Prevention of HIV in Africa and chair of the Global Community Advisory Board for the PURPOSE 1 trial, Yvette has spent decades ensuring that women most affected by HIV are not just research subjects, but architects of the science designed to protect them.

In this episode, she tells the inside story of lenacapavir, Science magazine's 2024 Breakthrough of the Year, from the community trust-building that made the PURPOSE trials possible, to the moment at AIDS 2024 when results showing 100% efficacy brought a room of scientists to their feet.

But Yvette is clear: a breakthrough is only a breakthrough if it reaches the people who need it. With PEPFAR funding under threat and rollout decisions being made without community voices, she pulls no punches on what accountability from science, pharma, and governments must actually look like.

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