Since there is not a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, the only way people can prevent transmission is to avoid behaviors putting them at risk to be infected, such as sharing a needle.

Many people infected with HIV have no symptoms. Therefore, there is no way of knowing with certainty whether a sexual partner is infected unless he or she has repeatedly tested negative for the virus and has not engaged in any risky behavior.

Abastaining from sex or using a condom will offer protection during oral,anal and vaginal sex. Only water based lubricants can be used when using a condom.

Although some laboratory evidence shows that spermicides can kill HIV, researchers have not found that these products can prevent a person from getting HIV.

NIAID recently supported two studies that concluded adult male circumcision reduces a man’s risk of contracting HIV by about 1/2. The studies in Uganda and Kenya pertain only to heterosexual transmission. As with other prevention strategies, male circumcision is not completely effective at preventing the transmission of HIV. Circumcision will be most effective when it is part of a more complete prevention strategy, including the ABCs (Abstinence, Be Faithful, Use Condoms) of HIV prevention.

Vaccines teach the immune system to recognize a specific harmful organism and fight off the disease when the body faces the real thing. In face of extraordinary advances in understanding both HIV and the immune system a successful HIV vaccine continues to be unattainable. This why we primarily reley on HIV medications like Lopinavir/Ritonavir (Kaletra), and Combivir (lamivudine and zidovudine).

HIV attacks CD4+ T cells, the most important part of the immune system that coordinates and directs the activities of other types of immune cells that combat intruding microbes. In order for a vaccine to be effective it would need to be able to activate these cells- a hard feat if they are being infected and destroyed by the HIV virus.Scientists have not identified the correlates of immunity, or protection, for HIV and are still trying to design vaccines to induce the appropriate immune responses necessary for protection.

 

Unlike other viral diseases for which investigators have made successful vaccines, there are no documented cases of complete recovery from HIV infection. So, HIV vaccine research has no actual human model of recovery from an infection and subsequent protection from re-infection to help it. HIV continually mutates in an infected person and evolves during the many recombinations of DNA; this creates new strains that are slightly different. This extensive diversity of HIV poses a challenge to vaccine design as an HIV vaccine would need to protect against many different strains of the virus circulating throughout the world. Conventional vaccines have had to protect against one or a limited number of strains.