National HIV Prevention Conference Delivers Call to Action

By Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director of NIAID’s Division of AIDS

I just returned from the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta where a sense of excitement and renewed enthusiasm for fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic were buoyed by the new opportunities that the Obama administration brings. Conversely, there was also an underlying current of anxiety about how our country’s economic situation is affecting HIV prevention services. First, let’s start with the positive.

Testing HIV Drugs as Prevention

By Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director of NIAID Division of AIDS

Dr. Carl Dieffenbach, PhD

Last year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that the number of annual new HIV infections in the United States is actually 40% higher than previously estimated. This means that more than 56,000 Americans are infected with HIV every year despite public education efforts on how to avoid getting infected. Addressing the global HIV/AIDS pandemic is critical, but it’s clear that we need to re-examine our approaches and figure out additional ways to control and curtail the epidemic here in the United States.

At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, we stand at the forefront of the nation’s HIV prevention research efforts. One of our goals is to develop new scientific strategies to prevent HIV transmission. We've had our share of successes and disappointments, like all areas of science, but we remain optimistic and are committed to ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic.