Today the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced that HVTN 702, a large-scale HIV vaccine efficacy trial of a canary pox-based vaccine candidate, has stopped vaccinations because the vaccine does not prevent HIV.

HVTN 702 (also known as Uhambo) was stopped following a scheduled review by an independent data and safety monitoring board. The review showed no significant difference between the two arms of the trial and importantly, no safety concerns. Trial participants are being informed of the stop and will remain in the study for follow-up.

• Read the NIAID press release
• Read the NIAID FAQs
• Read the AVAC press release

AVAC applauds the 5,407 trial participants in South Africa for their time and dedication, and the trial team for their hard work in conducting this trial and getting an answer quickly, even if it’s not the one we’d hoped for. The 252 new infections diagnosed across the study is yet another important reminder of the need for access to and uptake of current treatment and prevention options, like oral PrEP, and for continued investments in the development of additional vaccine and non-vaccine options.

HVTN 702 is a Phase 2b/3 study testing a regimen adapted from the vaccine strategy tested in the RV144 Thai vaccine trial, which showed roughly 30 percent lower infection rate among volunteers who received the vaccine versus those who received the placebo.

The vaccine approach in HVTN 702 is different from that being tested in other large-scale vaccine efficacy studies HVTN 705/HPX2008 (the Imbokodo Study) and HVTN 706/HPX3002 (the Mosaico study). It is also different from the planned PrEPVacc Study, which will test yet another vaccine strategy along with oral PrEP. The stop of HVTN 702 does not affect these trials or any other HIV prevention efficacy trials taking place globally.

AVAC and Advocacy for the Prevention of HIV and AIDS (APHA) held a global webinar on Wednesday, February 19 to discuss the latest updates and reflect on how they may impact HIV prevention globally. A recording of the webinar can be found here.

As always, please contact us with any questions.

[UPDATE: Slides and recordings from both webinars are now available. Links are provided below.]

This week, AVAC is hosting two webinars, each bringing focus to different challenges facing HIV prevention right now.

First up is Tuesday’s webinar, May 21, 9-10:30 EDT, Breaking the Cycle of Transmission: Increasing uptake and effective use of HIV prevention among high-risk adolescent girls and young women in South Africa—quantitative findings & segmentation. Recording available.

Presented by the HIV Prevention Market Manager, this webinar is the second in a series presenting findings from research on what encourages or discourages the effective use of HIV prevention among adolescent girls and young women. Check out the first webinar in the multi-part series, which covered the qualitative results.

Next up, on Thursday, May 23, 9-10am EDT is The Growing Epidemic of Vaccine Hesitancy and the Implications for Global Health. Recording available.

Join us to hear Heidi Larson, the Director of The Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene discuss what is called vaccine hesitancy and its implications across global health. We’ll also be joined by Laura Lopez Gonzalez, deputy editor at Bhekisisa, a health journalism center of the Mail & Guardian newspaper in South Africa. They’ll share perspectives on broader vaccine issues that impact the AIDS response as they play out in the media.

Bring your questions and join the conversation!

And if you missed it, check out last week’s HVAD webinar on HIV vaccine science and advocacy priorities. Download the slides and recording here.

This HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, AVAC has an updated toolkit of resources for translating HIV vaccine research with a renewed sense of urgency, and two dedicated hashtags to rally the call on social media: #HIVvaccineAware and #HVAD2019. We hope you’ll join the conversation — with the updated HVAD 2019 toolkit and our upcoming webinars!

Mitchell Warren is Executive Director of AVAC. This post first appeared in Science Speaks.

This year’s annual HIV Vaccine Awareness Day arrives Saturday at a promising and also perilous time for vaccines.

On one hand, multiple vaccine candidates that might protect against HIV are advancing in large clinical trials. Thanks to an extraordinary global commitment and US government investment, two large-scale studies testing different HIV vaccines are underway in Africa, and a third trial is slated to start soon in the Americas and Europe. Simultaneously, researchers are advancing other promising approaches in the lab, such as those that harness powerful anti-HIV antibodies to protect against the virus.

This golden age of vaccines is not limited to HIV. Infants in three African countries will soon receive a vaccine designed to reduce malaria — a disease that kills one child every 30 seconds, according to UNICEF. A vaccine to prevent pulmonary tuberculosis in adults may soon advance to a large-scale trial and could become a central component of strategies to contain this life-threatening disease that, when left untreated, kills half the patients it affects. And an experimental Ebola vaccine is being deployed with urgency to stop a growing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Vaccines have changed our lives in fundamental ways. In many parts of the world, vaccine-preventable diseases that terrified our parents and grandparents are dim memories today. But vaccines are not simple products. Many have challenges. Some are hard to manufacture; some only provide temporary or partial protection. Improving vaccines, using them effectively, educating potential users and ensuring that vaccines reach those in need all require public support and engagement.

Today, however, a rising global tide of anti-vaccine misinformation and sentiment is challenging that informed engagement — with potentially deadly results. Anti-vaccine fervor, based on discredited pseudo-science and too often endorsed by religious, government or community leaders, has led to the resurgence of diseases, such as the current — and completely preventable — measles outbreak, that were once considered conquered.

The implications of the anti-vaccination movement are enormous. Just as vaccines against some of the greatest global killers finally come within reach, fear and misinformation could diminish vital commitments to continued vaccine research, and important investments in vaccine education and delivery. Effective vaccines might not get developed, manufactured, distributed or used due to misguided, anti-vaccine sentiment — potentially putting millions of people at risk for entirely preventable deaths and diseases.

In the case of HIV, a faltering commitment to a vaccine would be devastating. Even with highly effective treatment and a daily prevention pill (known as PrEP) that can reduce HIV infections by more than 95%, nearly 2 million people still become infected with HIV each year. In the United States, a government pledge to end the domestic epidemic must confront the reality of an HIV infection rate that has barely changed since 2013. And in many parts of the world, new HIV infection rates, especially among vulnerable and marginalized populations, are actually rising rather than falling. All of these statistics point to one undeniable truth: we have made important progress against HIV, but this epidemic will not end without a vaccine.

In labs around the world, vaccine researchers are doing what we’ve asked them to do…making unprecedented progress against some of the most complex pathogens ever targeted.

Now, we must all leverage that scientific progress to rebuild a vital component of public health – faith in and support for vaccines. New vaccines in development present the greatest opportunity to save lives in human history. We cannot allow that opportunity slip away due to indifference, neglect or misinformation.

This HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, it’s time for a renewed global commitment to vaccine research, development and delivery. Vaccines save lives today, and a new generation of vaccines can save even more lives tomorrow.