AVAC in the News

An aggressive program of voluntary male circumcision in Kenya—a procedure shown to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV—has already prevented thousands of infections, a researcher said here.

This is the second case of a man on Truvada, the once-a-day pill that’s highly effective at preventing HIV, contracting a rare drug-resistant strain of the virus.

"Vaccine developers will insert pieces of HIV in the vaccine candidate. You can't become infected from the vaccine. They insert snippets that will help the body react to the virus," explained Mitchell Warren, the executive director of AVAC, a New York City-based NGO that advocates for the accelerated ethical development of HIV vaccine and prevention options.

The panel called for responsible media reporting about the HIV cure research and advised that all articles about HIV cure research results should include perspectives and quotes from independent scientists not involved in the study or studies being reported, be skeptical about any articles making claims about timelines, always cite the original science paper, avoid inflating research results and avoid speaking about “HIV cure” by itself—always include the word “research”.