Right now, the world is focused on COVID-19, which already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and paralyzed the economies of many countries. The low- and medium-income countries are less prepared to deal with the public health and economic challenges associated with the COVID-19 spread. Many of these countries are already struggling with diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV and will be severely impacted by the additional strain on their healthcare systems.
The pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 virus once again highlights the need to prepare for potential zoonotic infections that my spread around the world, just like HIV did 40 years ago. The worldwide response to HIV pandemic brought together scientists, doctors, advocates, and public health experts, just like COVID-19 pandemic has been met with international response. Indeed, many of the experts now working on COVID-19 have come from the HIV field. They are bringing the experience and the valuable lessons to accelerate the discovery of preventive measures and treatments for COVID-19.
In these challenging times, WHV remains committed to the development of a preventive HIV vaccine to reduce HIV infections around the world. HIV remains a major public health challenge around the world and a safe and effective vaccine is the best way to stop the virus.
WHV researchers are actively working to better understand the immune responses observed in the HVTN 124 trial, to advance our vaccine manufacturing, and to plan further clinical trials of our vaccine candidate.
