World AIDS Day

December 1st is World AIDS Day.UNAIDS is reinforcing the message this year about the importance of strengthening HIV prevention, even as we expand urgently-needed AIDS treatment programs. Wider use of existing prevention methods and development of new and more effective tools such as vaccines and microbicides are critical if we are to save millions of lives from the pandemic in the coming years. The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has published three paper: · Estimating the Global Impact of an AIDS Vaccine suggests that even a modestly effective AIDS vaccine could slash the number of new infections by a third. The paper also highlights the importance of combining a vaccine with existing HIV prevention activities such as condom promotion with vaccination in order to maximize their joint impact. (Policy brief / Full report)· Putting It Together: HIV/AIDS and the Millennium Development Goals shows how AIDS undermines progress toward a wide range of social and economic goals including household poverty reduction, improvements in child and maternal health and nutrition, gains in basic education for girls, and control and treatment of tuberculosis and malaria. The report underscores the importance of stronger HIV prevention efforts including the development of a vaccine as an essential means for achieving the MDGs and maintaining progress beyond 2015. (Policy brief / Full report)· Advanced Market Commitments: Helping to Accelerate AIDS Vaccine Development examines a novel and promising incentive mechanism that could provide additional motivation for industry to increase its investment in R&D for new vaccines targeted mainly at low-income developing country populations. An AMC would complement other incentive measures such as government research grants and financing from public-private partnerships like IAVI. The idea of Advance Market Commitments was endorsed by the G8 leaders last July at their annual summit, and finance ministers are meeting in London a few days from now to consider a more detailed proposal for an AMC program. (Policy brief)