2019 Advocacy-for-Cure Academy
Charles Brown
Nationality: Uganda
Institution: Preventive Care International
Country of work: Uganda
What is your motivation for becoming an HIV cure advocate?
For any new infection to happen there has to be an interaction between an HIV negative person and HIV positive person. To me promoting HIV prevention for the uninfected people while treating or getting a cure for the infected people will lead us to ending HIV soon.
HIV uninfected people deserve to stay negative BUT the HIV infected people equally deserve a health life free of HIV through a cure.
A cure will solve the pill burden and discrimination faced by people living with HIV. HIV cure is the key to living a happier life for those already infected.
What advocacy work are you currently engaged in?
I am involved in advocacy for scaling up PrEP to all those who need it in Uganda more especially the key population groups that face a lot of stigma, discrimination and criminalization.
My advocacy also focuses on promoting access to accurate and adequate information about PrEP by the community.
My advocacy is also on promoting biomedical HIV prevention in the Uganda. I am involved in advocating for research, delivery and scale up of interventions like PrEP, Condom, Safe male circumcision and Dapivirine Ring for women.
I am involved in advocating for HIV vaccine and cure research in the country through the vaccine advocacy group and cure advocacy group. Here we engage funders, policy makers and the community to support and get involved in these researches.
How do you think knowledge learned from the Advocacy-for-Cure Academy will influence your current work?
Knowledge from the cure academy will enhance my ability to further engage funders, policy makers and the community to advocate for cure research.
As we advocate for available interventions, the community is always asking us when we are getting the cure. Information from the cure academy will enhance my ability to engage better with the community to discuss HIV cure research.
The knowledge will help me to engage fellow advocates to empower them with information and encourage them to become advocates for HIV cure research and to talk about cure research in other engagement they are involved in.
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