Research Fundamentals: What is partial protection?

AVAC is launching a new series on our podcast Px Pulse—Research Fundamentals. In addition to our regular schedule of programs covering advances and challenges in HIV prevention research, Research Fundamentals we’ll explore scientific concepts in research, one at a time.

In our debut episode we explore the concept of partial protection, with:

  • David Evans, science and advocacy consultant for AVAC, formerly of Project Inform
  • Penny Moore from South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand and National Institute for Communicable Diseases
  • And Sandhya Vasan of the US Military HIV Research Program

Together we explore the meaning of partial protection. Whether it’s condoms, a flu shot, oral PrEP or the dapivirine vaginal ring, proven products fall short of 100 percent protection against disease, and there’s a lot to know about how and why an intervention may offer imperfect but still useful protection.

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Excerpted from Five “P”s to Watch.

The Race for a Coronavirus Vaccine

Will compressed and overlapping steps get a vaccine faster?

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Five “P”s to Watch

HIV vaccine research is making the search for a COVID-19 vaccine faster, safer and more inclusive. The global COVID-19 response evolves by the day—seemingly, even, by the minute—as the world has watched the tally of experimental diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines tick up into the hundreds. If researchers achieve their goal of making the search for a COVID-19 vaccine the fastest vaccine development effort in history, much of that success will be due to the research knowledge, vaccine platforms, trial networks and community engagement models created through HIV vaccine research.

COVID-19 Vaccine Pipeline Snapshot

A snapshot of the COVID-19 vaccine pipeline. Excerpted from Five “P”s to Watch.

Vaccines Approaches in COVID-19 Vaccine Development

HIV represents one of the most challenging viruses ever encountered. Though an HIV vaccine has yet to be licensed, vaccine science has made enormous strides as it confronts this rapidly-mutating virus. Years of painstaking work to develop vaccines for HIV are now making possible the record-breaking timelines that researchers aspire to for the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccines research has generated more scientific knowledge about immune function and responses than ever existed. And key vaccine platforms are fast-tracking the development and testing of experimental vaccines for COVID-19 today.

Excerpted from Five “P”s to Watch.