HIV & AIDS

A decades-long scientific challenge in HIV vaccine development has been finding a way to train the immune system to produce antibodies that can target many variants of the virus. Traditional approaches haven’t worked—largely because HIV mutates rapidly and hides key parts of itself from the immune system.

Worldwide, an estimated 40 million people live with HIV. Two-thirds of this group are on the African continent. In 2023, more than 600,000 people died from HIV-related causes and 1.32 million were infected. There is no vaccine against the world’s second most deadly infection, after TB. However, researchers from Amsterdam UMC have set an important first step in reaching that goal. The results of their phase one trial are published in Science.

A new commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine from Roy Gulick, MD, Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, highlights what’s new in the updated CDC HIV Non-Occupational Post Exposure Prophylaxis (nPEP) Guidelines. According to Dr. Gulick, the streamlined nPEP guidelines should be part of general medical practice, as incorporating them will reduce new HIV infections and improve public health.

Tackling HIV continues to be a major public health challenge, mainly because the persistence of viral reservoirs means that people living with HIV need to take lifelong antiretroviral treatment. But some individuals, known as “post-treatment controllers,” are able to maintain an undetectable viral load even after stopping treatment.

HIV infections are lifelong and can weaken the immune system, causing a patient to be more susceptible to infection and various cancers. Children of mothers with HIV are at risk of developing an HIV infection as it is transmittable during labor and while breastfeeding.

The Trump administration is weighing elimination of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division on HIV Prevention, sparking concerns among public health experts.

Nearly 85% of the 1.7 million adolescents with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, along with half of the nearly 40 million people in the world living with HIV. Although the government in Uganda provides antiretroviral treatment (ART) for free, adherence to the regimen by adolescents aged 10–16 is low, increasing the potential for the virus to further spread.

Researchers from the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) have presented results from the HPTN 094 (“INTEGRA”) study at the 2025 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in San Francisco.

The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has been a cornerstone of global HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment for over two decades. Pepfar has enjoyed broad bipartisan support in the US, but its future is now uncertain. Public health scholars Eric A. Friedman, Sarah A. Wetter and Lawrence O. Gostin explain Pepfar’s history and impacts, as well as what may lie ahead.

The Trump administration has paused funding for a crucial HIV treatment program in Africa and developing countries for 90 days, according to a memo obtained by The New York Times.