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Since there is not a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, the only way people can prevent transmission is to avoid behaviors putting them at risk to be infected, such as sharing a needle.
Many people infected with AIDS HIV have no symptoms. Therefore, there is no way of knowing with certainty whether a sexual partner is infected unless he or she has repeatedly tested negative for the virus and has not engaged in any risky behavior.
Abstainence or using a condom may offer partial protection during oral, anal or vaginal sex. Only water based lubricants can be used when using a condom.
Even though there is some evidence to show spermicides can destroy HIV, it is not proven as a prevention system.
NIAID recently supported two studies that concluded adult male circumcision reduces a man’s risk of contracting HIV by about 1/2. The studies, conducted in Uganda and Kenya, pertain only to heterosexual transmission. As with most prevention strategies, adult male medical circumcision is not completely effective at preventing HIV transmission. Circumcision will be most effective when it is part of a more complete prevention strategy, including the ABCs (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Use Condoms) of HIV prevention.
Vaccines help the body’s immune system to recognize a harmful organism and kill it when the body sees the real thing. Despite extraordinary advances in understanding both HIV and the human immune system, a fully successful HIV vaccine continues to elude researchers. This why we primarily reley on HIV medications like Aluvia (Kaletra), and Lamivudine/Zidovudine (Combivir).
HIV attacks CD4+ T cells, the most important part of the immune system that coordinates and directs the activities of other types of immune cells that combat intruding microbes. In order for a vaccine to be effective it would need to be able to activate these cells- a hard feat if they are being infected and destroyed by the HIV virus.Scientist have not figured out the correlates of immunity or protection for HIV and are working to make vaccines to induce the necessary immune resonse necessary.
Unlike other viral diseases for which investigators have made successful vaccines, there are no documented cases of complete recovery from HIV infection. So, HIV vaccine research has no actual human model of recovery from an infection and subsequent protection from re-infection to help it. HIV will continually mutate in an infected person while it recombinds to evolve into brand new strains. This extensive diversity of HIV poses a challenge to vaccine design as an HIV vaccine would need to protect against many different strains of the virus circulating throughout the world. Vaccines in the past have only had to fight off a small number of strains, even one.
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