AIDS Vaccine Handbook: Global Perspectives

by Patricia Kahn (Editor)

THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV/AIDS now approaches 40 million worldwide, and over 3 million people died of AIDS in 2004 alone. Each day 14,000 more men, women and children get infected—95% of them in developing countries. Beyond the health emergency this represents, AIDS is also a global development crisis that devastates families, villages, cities and countries.

We need to do much more with today's prevention methods, and we must expand access to treatment. But no viral disease has ever been controlled without a vaccine.

A safe, effective AIDS vaccine remains the world's best chance to curb the relentless epidemic.

As the global effort to develop an AIDS vaccine scales up and expands internationally, the need for information geared to lay readers is growing quickly. This is especially true for the clinical testing of candidate vaccines, which cannot be achieved without tens (and ultimately hundreds) of thousands of volunteers from at-risk communities around the world. It also applies to the advocates, policy makers, community health workers and others interested in AIDS vaccine development.

The AIDS Vaccine Handbook aims to meet these needs. Through a collection of easy-to-read, lively essays, it gives an overview of clinical trials and the questions they raise for communities, of the key scientific, advocacy and policy issues and challenges, and of the experiences gained and lessons learned so far. The essays are written by people involved in this work in many different ways in many parts of the world.

In the time it took to read this, 15 more people became infected with HIV/AIDS.

370 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2005