health.mil

Christy Crimmins  |  health.mil

December 01, 2011

In 2009, the World Health Organization estimated that there were 33.4 million people worldwide living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or AIDS and 2.7 million new HIV infections per year.  World AIDS day, held each year on December 1st, aims to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic and the spread of HIV. This year’s theme is “Leading with Science, Uniting for Action.”

“This is a day to remind people that HIV has not gone away,” says Dr. Johnan Kaleeba, assistant professor at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS) Department of Microbiology and Immunology.

“2011 marked 30 years since the first AIDS cases were reported.  With an average age of around 28 years old, many of our service members do not know a world without AIDS,” said Army Col. Nelson L. Michael, M.D., Ph.D, director of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program in  a blog at DoD Live “Armed with Science.” 

While the disease continues to be an international concern, the United Nations estimated that in 2010 there were 1.8 million AIDS-related deaths, a figure lower than the 2.2 million estimated in 2005. This shift in numbers is indicative of advances being made in the treatment and prevention of AIDS and HIV.

A Phase III clinical trial has demonstrated that an investigational HIV vaccine regimen was safe and modestly effective in preventing HIV infection. “The military has taken the lead in engineering clinical trials and vaccinations,” says Kaleeba, citing an Army-sponsored phase III clinical trial (RV144)  involving more than 16,000 adult volunteers in Thailand. The trial showed that an investigational HIV vaccine regimen was safe and modestly effective in preventing HIV infection.

While the vaccine under development is targeted toward a strain of HIV specific to Thailand, Kaleeba believes that its success suggests the possibility of creating vaccines for other strains.

“We’ve had many false starts, but have made significant progress in the last five or six years,” says Kaleeba of the positive advancements being made by the U.S. Military HIV Research Program.

While an HIV vaccination is a top goal, Kaleeba says prevention is also a key factor. “That’s the real essence of World AIDS Day,” he explains, “Bringing this issue into focus takes everybody.”

In a speech given at the National Institute of Health earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted the need for prevention strategies that included ending mother-to-child transmission of HIV and AIDS and increased treatment of those living with the disease.

“Now of course, interventions like these can’t be successful in isolation. They work best when combined with condoms, counseling and testing, and other effective prevention interventions,” Clinton said. “As the world scales up the most effective prevention methods, the number of new infections will go down, and it will be possible to treat more people than are becoming infected each year. And so, instead of falling behind year after year, we will, for the first time, get ahead of the pandemic. We will be on the path to an AIDS-free generation. That is the real power of combination prevention.”

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