
Treatment GuideJust DiagnosedSex & DatingAfrican AmericanStigmaAsk the HIV DocPrEP En EspañolNewsVoicesPrint IssueVideoOut 100
CONTACTCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2025 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
Scroll To Top
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
For the first time an AIDS vaccine tested on more than 16,000 HIV-negative people in Thailand has shown that it could protect some of the volunteers from becoming infected. This caused a lot of excitement in the scientific community. All previous vaccine trials have failed to protect individuals from HIV. In fact, in one earlier vaccine trial, participants who received the vaccine were even more likely to become infected. What made this vaccine different? And how effective was it? This vaccine, known as RV144, was a combination of two vaccines called Alvac and Aidsvax. Individually, these vaccines failed to protect people from HIV, but scientists had a hunch that if combined they might work better. When scientists did combine them and tested them in a group of people from Thailand, they found that the vaccine prevented three out of every 10 people from becoming infected with HIV. Scientists now think that combining the two vaccines stimulated a particular immune response in the volunteers that allowed some of them to not get infected. Blood samples from those individuals will now be studied with the hope of creating even more powerful vaccines that might protect even more people from becoming infected. What does this HIV vaccine mean to those that are already HIV infected? This vaccine was designed to protect HIV-negative individuals from becoming infected. For those who are already infected, this vaccine will not likely have any benefit. In fact, vaccinated patients who still contracted HIV had the same level of virus in their blood as patients who never received the vaccines. What this suggests is that the vaccine may not have any benefit in helping people who are already HIV-infected. As promising as this finding is, we still don't know the exact recipe for why this vaccine worked in some people but not in others. Right now scientists are looking at the blood samples of people in this trial to determine the important immune responses that protected some individuals. It's definitely a good starting point but we're still about 10 years away from an effective HIV vaccine. This news is very promising, but we still need to keep up with our prevention efforts. Currently in the United States, there are 56,000 new HIV infections every year; that's one new infection roughly every eight minutes. We can't afford to wait for a vaccine. So in the meantime, we need to continue with our current prevention efforts (for example, encouraging condom use and funding for needle-exchange programs) as well as to look to new scientific strategies like preexposure prophylaxis while waiting for a truly effective vaccine to arrive. Urbina is an HIV specialist and the medical director of HIV education and training at St. Vincent's Comprehensive HIV Center as well as an associate professor of medicine and an associate professor of clinical public health at New York Medical College. He also serves on the President's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Lexi Love comes out as HIV+ after Trump deletes federal resources
January 23 2025 11:23 AM
Grindr is reminding us why jockstraps are so sexy and iconic
May 02 2025 5:36 PM
BREAKING NEWS: Trump admin moves to end federal HIV prevention programs
March 18 2025 6:10 PM
Trump's orders prompt CDC to erase HIV resources
January 31 2025 5:29 PM
Celebrating Black History Month with our annual African American issue
February 01 2025 3:28 PM
Tyler TerMeer vows to continue to fight for health care for all
January 28 2025 3:00 PM
Discover the power of Wellness in your life
March 26 2025 12:41 PM
Plus: Featured Video
Latest Stories
Dancer. Healer. Survivor. DéShaun Armbrister is all of the above
July 02 2025 8:23 PM
Two right-wing Supreme Court justices signal they may uphold access to PrEP and more
April 21 2025 4:10 PM
Broadway's best raise over $1 million for LGBTQ+ and HIV causes
April 03 2025 7:15 PM
Plus nominated for 2025 GLAAD Media Award
January 22 2025 12:42 PM
'RuPaul's Drag Race' star Trinity K Bonet quietly comes out trans
December 15 2024 6:27 PM
AIDS Memorial Quilt displayed at White House for the first time
December 02 2024 1:21 PM
BREAKING: Supreme Court rules to save free access to preventive care, including PrEP
June 27 2025 10:32 AM
1985: the year the AIDS crisis finally broke through the silence
June 26 2025 11:24 AM
Trump admin guts $258 million in funding for HIV vaccine research
June 03 2025 3:47 PM
500,000 Children at Risk: PEPFAR Funding Crisis
April 08 2025 3:51 PM
The Talk Season 5 premieres this spring with HIV guidance for the newly diagnosed
March 26 2025 1:00 PM
Jess King is here to help you live your happiest, healthiest life yet
March 24 2025 4:35 PM
A camp for HIV-positive kids is for sale. Here's why its founder is celebrating
January 02 2025 12:21 PM
VIDEO: A man living with HIV discusses his journey to fatherhood
June 10 2025 4:58 PM
HRC holds 'die-in' to protest Trump health care cuts
April 28 2025 2:11 PM
Season 4 of The Switch on resilience & radical self-love returns this spring
March 26 2025 12:20 PM
Gerald Garth is keeping people of color happy and healthy through trying times
March 11 2025 3:38 PM
This long-term HIV survivor says testosterone therapy helped save his life.
December 16 2024 8:00 PM
Ricky Martin delivers showstopping performance for 2024 World AIDS Day
December 05 2024 12:08 PM