Scientists have created a potential vaccine for HIV that may one day prevent the spread of the disease. This vaccine helps muscles make proteins that block HIV from taking hold in the body and the immune system does the rest of the work by clearing out the virus. The vaccine study, done at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida, has now completely shielded four monkeys against several strains of SHIV, which is an adapted version of HIV used in animal studies. After multiple attempts to infect the monkeys with the virus, who had received the vaccine, the monkeys remained SHIV free.

Although this vaccine is still in the animal testing stage, this brings hope for both HIV positive and HIV negative people. If this vaccine is ever approved by the FDA and becomes as routine as the vaccine for polio or the flu, we may be able to live in a world free of new HIV transmissions in our lifetime. And in the meantime, those who are HIV negative with positive partners are going to have the greatest advantage because it will prevent transmission. I will be following the work of these scientists on this vaccine and can’t wait to see what they accomplish. It gives me hope that in the coming years we will possibly eradicate one of the world’s most devastating viruses.