Annual Report 2015-2016 > HIV & STIs

We provided support for a study in Zimbabwe of a new vaginal ring with the antiretroviral drug dapivirine, finding that it reduced women’s risk of HIV by nearly a third.

• We developed a scalable training for health care providers in Uganda that increased the number of HIV-positive people who started and stuck with live-saving antiretroviral therapy.


• We explored how birth control, antiretroviral therapy and HIV interact, learning that HIV-positive women using efavirenz can safely use contraceptive implants and that some forms of injectable birth control may increase women’s risk of HIV.


• We reached new groups for HIV testing with the SEARCH study in Eastern Africa, dramatically increasing testing in young people and uncovering new ways to engage men.


• To prevent bacterial vaginosis (BV)—a common condition that makes women more likely to get other STIs—we began testing a treatment made with healthy natural vaginal bacteria.

To learn more about our programs working in HIV/AIDS, see Family AIDS Care & Education Services (FACES) and the UCSF-University of Zimbabwe Collaborative Research Programme (UZ-UCSF).

To help us continue making an impact on HIV/AIDS treatment, care and prevention worldwide, make a gift to the Bixby Center.

Photo credit: USAID.