HIV remains one of the world's most significant global public health challenges. As a result of recent advances in access to medication called antiretroviral therapy, HIV positive people can now live longer and healthier lives. Research has also confirmed this type of medication prevents onward transmission of the infection. Despite the existence of this medication, many people, are still being infected with HIV.

In this episode of Next Generation Research we are going to meet Valentina Cambiano, she is an associate professor in epidemiology at the Institute of Global Health at University College London.

We will find out about her research project, currently underway in Zimbabwe, which is aiming to understand why at-risk adolescent girls and young women are not taking the HIV prevention medication. Valentina and her colleagues are speaking to young women across the country in order to design a survey. They will then propose new ways to improve the uptake of this medication in Zimbabwe. We will hear about the reasons why this medication is not attractive, how it could be made more accessible and how this sort of sensitive research is undertaken.

Find out more about Valentina here: https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=VCAMB67

CeSHHAR website (the research centre in Zimbabwe): http://ceshhar.org/

HIV modelling consortium: http://hivmodeling.org/

Host: Giles Yeo

Producer: Hester Cant

Executive Producer: Freya Hellier

This podcast was supported by the Future Leaders Fellows Development Network and funded by UKRI.

Find out more about the Future Leaders Fellowship here

The views expressed in the podcast are the views of the individuals in the podcast, and do not necessarily represent the views of UKRI or the FLF Development Network.

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