An HIV Vaccine is Our Best Hope

Scientists are working to develop a safe and effective HIV vaccine. To succeed, they will need thousands of HIV-negative people to support HIV vaccine studies and encourage those who volunteer. You can't get HIV from the vaccine study, but you can help end the AIDS epidemic.

Learn more about how you can do your part.

Research Update: STEP Study Stops Vaccinating Volunteers

On September 21, 2007, Merck & Co. Inc., the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the NIAID-funded HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) announced vaccinations and enrollment in the HIV vaccine clinical trial known as the STEP study (one of two phase II trials) had been discontinued.

The Merck HIV vaccine candidate was not effective at preventing infection in participants not previously infected with HIV, or at lowering the amount of HIV in the body of those who became infected with HIV during the study. Read more.

Testing vaccines for HIV prevention requires HIV negative volunteers. Are you HIV positive?
Learn about therapeutic vaccine trials