May 18, 2008 - HIV Vaccine Awareness Day

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, reminds us that May 18, 2008 is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day. Twenty-five years ago this month, researchers reported the isolation of the virus that causes AIDS. Since then, over 60 million people have been infected with HIV — an estimated 2.5 million in 2007 alone — numbers that remind us that the development of an HIV vaccine is an urgent humanitarian imperative. This year’s HIV Vaccine Awareness Day provides us with an opportunity to renew and strengthen our commitment here at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to finding a safe and effective HIV vaccine that will slow, and hopefully one day end, the HIV⁄AIDS pandemic. Read more from Dr. Fauci

Related Information

• Merck's HIV Vaccine Has Failed

• Barriers to Vaccine Development

• An HIV Timeline