There’s still no HIV vaccine. Could Covid-19 jab technology – mRNA shots or modified cold virus – be the answer?

After 40 years, HIV treatment has advanced dramatically, but there is still no sign of an effective vaccine

Various trials have taken place without success, but there are hopes for a trial mRNA vaccine and another that uses a genetically modified cold virus

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HIV and Aids have been around for 40 years, and still we have no effective vaccine. Above: HIV viruses have infected a human T-cell causing it to make more HIV viruses. Illustration: Getty Images

Published: 7:15pm, 8 Jun 2021Updated: 7:15pm, 8 Jun 2021

In the four decades since the first cases of what would come to be known as Aids were documented, scientists have made huge strides in HIV treatment, transforming what was once a death sentence to a manageable condition.

What we still don’t have is a vaccine that would train human immune systems to ward off the infection before it ever takes root.

Here’s the state of play on some of these efforts, which experts see as the “holy grail” in the fight to eliminate a virus that 38 million people live with globally. (In Hong Kong, there have been nearly 11,000 reports of HIV infection since 1984; in 2020, 83 per cent of the 505 cases reported were in men, and 70 per cent were in Chinese people. More than three-quarters of the cases involved people aged 20 to 49.)

Why do we need a vaccine?

More people than ever now have access to medications called antiretroviral therapy or ART, which, when taken as prescribed, reduce the amount of virus in their body. This keeps them healthy and unable to transmit HIV.

Beyond ART, people at high risk of infection can now get pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a pill taken every day that reduces the risk of infection by 99 per cent.

“But access to medication is not organised in every part of the world,” Hanneke Schuitemaker, global head of viral vaccine discovery at Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Vaccines, said.