Statement from the U.S. National Institutes of Health on Worlds AIDS Day 2010 Excerpt:
“…We have come a long way in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but we still have much to do, especially in our efforts to cure existing infections and prevent new ones,” said National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
“Although progress has been made in reducing the number of new HIV infections globally, the onslaught of new infections is still unacceptably high — 2.6 million in 2009 alone,” Dr. Fauci added. “Unless we stem this tide of new infections, and hopefully cure a substantial proportion of those already infected, it will be nearly impossible to control or end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.”
During the past year, NIH-supported researchers reported a number of important advances related to HIV prevention strategies — advances that build on the foundation of knowledge generated in part by NIH’s investment in HIV/AIDS research. These strategies include vaccines, topical gels (microbicides) with anti-HIV activity, pre-exposure prophylaxis with antiretroviral drugs, and behavioral and social science interventions.
An effective vaccine is a critical goal in HIV prevention. A large study conducted in Thailand provided the first signs that a vaccine actually could prevent HIV infection, albeit in a relatively small percentage of those vaccinated. Those findings were by no means the final answer, and more research is now underway to understand how this vaccine regimen works and how its efficacy might be increased. In another major step toward development of an effective vaccine, NIH-sponsored researchers discovered several potent human antibodies that can stop most known HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory. These antibodies could be used to design HIV vaccines, or could be further developed to treat HIV infection. The novel techniques used in this research may accelerate HIV vaccine research as well as the development of vaccines for other infectious diseases.
Another significant milestone for HIV prevention came in July 2010, when the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) reported that a vaginal gel containing the antiretroviral drug tenofovir reduced the risk of male-to-female sexual transmission of HIV by approximately 40 percent. NIH funding provided the training and research infrastructure for this study.
Pre-exposure prophylaxis or PreP involves giving uninfected people antiretroviral drugs as a possible means of preventing HIV infection. Just last week, the published results of the NIH-sponsored iPrEx study indicated that a daily dose of an oral antiretroviral drug cut the risk of HIV infection by more than 40 percent among men who have sex with men (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2010/Pages/iPrEx.aspx). The study found even higher rates of effectiveness, up to 73 percent, among those participants who adhered most closely to the PrEP regimen. Ongoing research will determine whether PrEP can work in other at-risk populations, including women and heterosexual men…”
vaccines and global health :: ethics and policy 