Printable version The G8 endorsements of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise in 2004, 2006 and 2010 were central to efforts to build the political support needed to make the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise a reality. The endorsements played a role in facilitating the scientific advances that have brought the goal of safe and effective HIV vaccines closer to reality.
- 2004, Sea Island: G8 Action to Endorse and Establish a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise
- 2006, St. Petersburg: Fight Against Infectious Diseases
- 2010, Muskoka: Gleneagles Annex II Commitments
Background
The development of safe and effective HIV vaccines is central to efforts to reverse the AIDS epidemic. Despite significant global advances to provide access to prevention, treatment and care for HIV, 61,400 pregnant women alone died from HIV last year and more than 50,000 women, men and children are still newly infected with HIV every week.
To speed progress toward this central public health goal, G8 leaders at the 2004 Summit in Sea Island, Georgia, USA endorsed the proposal of an international group of scientists calling for the establishment of a Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. This unique concept, a virtual consortium of the world’s leading HIV vaccine scientists and research organizations, was created in 2005 to speed a coordinated, collaborative program of independently executed scientific and clinical research designed to address the most significant obstacles to developing safe and effective vaccines to prevent HIV infection.
In its first year of operation, the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise brought together more than 140 leading researchers, funders, and advocates from 15 countries to develop the first shared global Scientific Strategic Plan for HIV vaccine development. In 2006 the G8 endorsed the Plan, which identified the greatest challenges and most important scientific priorities for the field and recommended concrete strategies that have led to:
• the development of coordinated global HIV vaccine development centers and consortia to address the most pressing challenges in HIV vaccine research;
• expansion of an integrated international clinical trials system;
• increased government, foundation and industry support for HIV vaccine research and the improved alignment and channeling of those resources;
• expansion of HIV vaccine research in developing countries and increased engagement by scientists from those countries;
• increased use of advanced information-sharing technologies;
• the establishment of standardized preclinical and clinical laboratory assessment tools, and new systems to share HIV vaccine research information; and
• additional efforts to encourage the best young and early career researchers to enter the HIV vaccine research field.
HIV vaccine research has also produced a number of scientific advances since the creation of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. Among these are the landmark results of the clinical trial (RV144) in Thailand that provided the first evidence that a vaccine regimen can confer some degree of protection against HIV acquisition and the discovery of new antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad array of diverse HIV strains. Both of these major advances were led by Enterprise partners.
In September 2010 the Enterprise will release an updated Scientific Strategic Plan that reflects recent scientific progress in the field. The new Scientific Strategic Plan will lay out a bold path forward designed to address the greatest challenges in HIV vaccine research and to bring the best researchers and the latest scientific methods to bear in the global search for safe and effective HIV vaccines.
In time for the release of the Enterprise 2010 Scientific Strategic Plan, the G8, through the 2010 Muskoka Accountability Report, reaffirmed its commitment to the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise and support for the development of safe and effective HIV vaccines.
