• About 39,000 new diagnoses in the U.S. for the last reporting period. Prevalence (people living with the disease) in the U.S. is over 1.1 million people ages 13 and older.
• About 41 million people worldwide are now living with HIV. Over 1.2 million new cases of HIV were diagnosed globally in the last reporting period.
• There is no human example of someone clearing HIV naturally.
• Vaccines have significantly reduced or eliminated a number of deadly infectious diseases. Preventive vaccines have been used for decades around the world. When manufactured and used properly, they are very safe, and it is more cost-effective to prevent diseases than to treat them. 
• Vaccines are responsible for eliminating smallpox worldwide. Soon the same will be true of polio. More recently, a vaccine against a cancer-causing virus, human papilloma virus (HPV), was approved. We hope one day to be able to add an HIV vaccine to the list of diseases that are preventable by a vaccine.

• While treatment for HIV and AIDS has dramatically improved, it is no substitute for prevention. Current HIV medications are expensive, and they have many side effects. They also have to be taken for the rest of a person’s life.
• Sometimes people develop drug resistance and have to change the regimen of pills they take.
• Access to these drugs is not guaranteed, and some low- and middle-income countries do not have access to the same medicines that are available in the U.S. and Europe.
• The rate of new diagnoses around the world is greater than our ability to get people diagnosed and into care to receive treatment.
• These days, there is also the option of using several drugs to prevent HIV (known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP). These medications are approved as pills and as long-acting injections, and a vaginal ring is approved in some countries. It’s tempting to think an HIV vaccine is no longer necessary. PrEP is an important addition to the methods of HIV prevention, but it is has not proven to be an option for everyone: the medications are expensive, may have undesirable side effects, and may not be accessible to everyone.
  
• Another prevention option being studied is broadly neutralizing antibodies. If successful, this method could also provide protection, and may help to fill gaps that the other prevention methods don’t cover, such as transmission to children or an option for people who don’t like pills or shots.
• Vaccines remain the most efficient and effective way to eliminate an infectious disease. They are proven to be an effective, affordable and practical option.

HIV was identified in 1983. In comparing the time spent on preventive HIV vaccine research to other vaccine development timelines, the fact that we are still looking for a vaccine is not surprising; it took 47 years to develop the polio vaccine!

Finding a safe and effective HIV vaccine that will protect people around the world is a formidable but necessary task. HIV is a powerful opponent, but scientists are constantly learning from one another and using advanced technology to move the science forward. Scientific understanding continues to improve all the time. The HVTN is leading the effort to build on what we’ve learned so far.