Promising HIV vaccine passes phase one human trials with 90% success rate
My father is an infectious disease specialist who has spent the last 30 or so years working on HIV in research, patient treatment, and education. The following thought comes from my casual conversations with him, and probably does not represent his professional opinion. It certainly does not reflect his specific thoughts in regards to this trial, as we haven't yet discussed it.<p>The progress in treating HIV since it first entered the popular psyche has been significant. It is no longer a death sentence in the developed world, and those infected with HIV - who get treatment and adhere to that treatment - can live long and relatively normal lives.<p>The real problem is in the developing world, and amongst populations in the developed world that cannot or will not seek/adhere to treatment. Treatment is sufficiently advanced that, while further developments of a vaccine are unbelievably exciting, they are not necessarily a game-changer in terms of worldwide infection. We have a long way to go in terms of beating this virus. Theoretically, we could follow the same route as with [edit: smallpox], unifying and mobilizing the world to isolate and then eradicate pockets of the disease, but this is a much larger effort than the one taking place in the lab, and is a question of government & administration, rather than medicine.<p>Edit: Bringing it up from a comment I made below, here is a relevant TED Talk on stopping pandemics: <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pandemics.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_brilliant_wants_to_stop_pande...</a>