Strategies for the development of vaccines against HIV

Possible approaches to the development of vaccines against HIV are reviewed in the light of experience with existing virus vaccines and understanding of the process of viral infection. While HIV infection presents serious theoretical problems in developing vaccines most are also encountered in some form with other virus infections. The very nature of HIV infection raises objections to using live attenuated or inactivated virus vaccines, as it is difficult to ensure that they are non-infectious or completely inactivated. The most promising types of vaccine involve expression of viral antigens in acceptable vectors either as virus vectors, or recombinant DNA products. However, the problem of identifying the antigen needed to induce adequate protective immunity remains and there is a clear need for a usable animal model to establish the potential of vaccines for human use.