Faith communities have played an integral role in getting more people vaccinated against COVID-19. Now the COVID-19 Prevention Network Faith Initiative is hoping to help in a similar way to fight HIV.

"Faith communities still possess a significant amount of community capital and trust, perhaps maybe more so than the health care systems in communities of color, and so we understand the power within those spaces," said Ulysses Burley, the founder of UBtheCURE.

The new HIV Vaccine Trials Network Faith Initiative will use ambassadors across the country to connect with faith leaders. The goal is to reach Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities of faith.

"We understand those to be the communities that disproportionately lack access to the education, information that they need to make informed decisions about how it is that they interact with our health care system about medicine and clinical trials," Burley said.

Burley says they've seen success getting past mistrust and hesitancy with COVID-19 vaccines by making sure people get information from those they trust in a way that makes sense to them.

The initiative hopes to do the same thing with HIV and get more people into HIV vaccine clinical trials.

"It's not just about sharing information. It's about sharing information in an accessible way specific to the communities that need that information, and that involves a level of what we generally term is cultural competency. But I prefer to expound on that to say cultural humility, where it's not just an understanding of one's culture, but a respect for one's culture," Burley said.

He says clinical trials for an HIV vaccine aren't expected to start in the U.S. for a few more years, but they're hoping to get ahead of the questions that will come up when those trials begin.

FDA approves first injectable PrEP medication to lower HIV risk

Updated: 11:43 PM EST Dec 21, 2021

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first injectable medication for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to lower the risk of getting HIV through sex, it announced Monday.Apretude is approved for adults and teens who are at risk of getting HIV through sex and who weigh at least 77 pounds. It's given first as two shots a month apart, and every two months afterward.PrEP was previously available only in the form of pills, Truvada and Descovy."Today's approval adds an important tool in the effort to end the HIV epidemic by providing the first option to prevent HIV that does not involve taking a daily pill," said Dr. Debra Birnkrant, director of the Division of Antivirals in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.Approval of the new drug "will be critical to addressing the HIV epidemic in the U.S., including helping high-risk individuals and certain groups where adherence to daily medication has been a major challenge or not a realistic option," Birnkrant added.An estimated 34,800 new cases of HIV were diagnosed in 2019, the latest year for which federal statistics are available. That's down from 37,800 in 2015. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that in 2020, PrEP was recommended for about 1.2 million people, but only a quarter got a prescription for it.Two double-blind clinical trials comparing Apretude with Truvada found significantly lower HIV risk in people getting the injection, the FDA noted. The risk was 69% lower in the first trial, of HIV-negative cisgender men and transgender women who have sex with men, and 90% lower in the second trial, which involved cisgender women.Research also found that Apretude was more likely than Truvada to cause side effects such as injection site reactions, headache, fatigue, back pain, myalgia and rash.Because of a risk of drug-resistant HIV variants, Apretude is only for people who test negative for HIV immediately before starting the drug and before each injection. The label also includes warnings about hypersensitivity reactions, liver damage and depressive disorders.

The FDA could approve vaccine booster shots for some of the most vulnerable Americans within weeks. 

According to multiple reports, in the next week or so, the FDA is planning to review CDC data on additional doses for the immunocompromised.

That includes people who have gotten organ transplants, are being treated for cancer, or have HIV, just to name a few. 

This story was originally reported by Kamil Zawadzki on Newsy.com