The Ongoing Search for New Prevention Technologies

Last year at this time, the HIV-prevention picture looked bleak, as trial after trial failed to show benefit from the vaccines, microbicides, and other biomedical interventions being tested. This year, we seemed to have turned a corner on both vaccines and microbicides — but then our hopes around the microbicide were dashed.

Promising Vaccine Results

The positive vaccine news came from the Thai RV144 trial, which tested a prime-boost combination of vaccines (ALVAC-HIV and AIDSVAX B/E) against placebo among more than 16,000 adult volunteers. In a modified intent-to-treat analysis, the vaccine recipients had a 31% lower rate of HIV acquisition than the placebo recipients (JW AIDS Clin Care Oct 22 2009). Although some individuals remain skeptica…