Prevention
NIAID is conducting and supporting research to develop new strategies to prevent the spread of HIV. These strategies include vaccines, topical microbicides, such as gels, creams and foams, that can be applied to the vagina or rectum prior to sexual intercourse, and providing antiretrovirals to people who are not infected with HIV but who are at high risk of acquiring HIV infection (called pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)). NIAID is committed to finding scientifically proven HIV prevention strategies and methods that are acceptable for use by different patient populations around the world to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To accelerate the identification and evaluation of new concepts, strategies, and products, NIAID partners with community advisory groups, scientific investigators, and other organizations.
Research-based prevention strategies have already contributed to the maintenance of low infection rates in a number of settings and to declining HIV epidemics in specific populations around the world. In resource-constrained countries, in particular, non-vaccine prevention strategies are important for reducing new infections where there is limited access to health care and antiretroviral drugs.
NIAID’s HIV/AIDS prevention research agenda is guided by the NIH Office of AIDS Research (OAR), the entity responsible for the overall scientific, budgetary, legislative, and policy elements of all AIDS research sponsored by NIH. The major goals of NIAID's prevention research agenda include:
- Develop and test promising biomedical and behavioral HIV prevention products and interventions in clinical trials
- Integrate prevention research into the overall HIV/AIDS research agenda
- Identify opportunities to integrate the planning of HIV prevention research with existing developing country infrastructures
- Develop and implement effective ways to translate new knowledge into wider practice
- Disseminate information about intervention strategies that can significantly reduce the incidence of new HIV infections
Additional Information