into one such vector examined its ability to protect monkeys from the simian version of HIV, known as SIV. The researchers found that while the novel SIV vaccine cannot prevent infection, it suppresses SIV so effectively in many cases that the virus eventually cannot be detected in blood and tissue samples of vaccinated monkeys using standard laboratory methods. The challenge will be translating this breakthrough in vector design into an HIV vaccine candidate that can be safely and ethically tested in humans.
After years of painstaking work, and no shortage of setbacks, we have in hand today solid proof of concept for every one of the major experimental strategies for preventing HIV. Now each of those results must be confirmed and improved upon—certainly in the case of vaccines. All this will take time and money and so, inevitably, test the patience of policymaker and advocate alike.
Prevention—especially the development of new biomedical tools for that purpose—has to be a global priority. We simply cannot treat our way out of this pandemic. Each day, 7,000 people are newly infected with HIV; for every person put on antiretrovirals, two more become HIV infected. Current prevention methods cannot stem the tide of AIDS. The only real hope we have of ending this pandemic is through the deployment of effective biomedical tools to block HIV transmission, such as vaccines. We are pleased to note that the prospects of that happening have never looked better than they do today.