“The Quest for an AIDS Vaccine”
Sha’Quita Septs
September 25, 2012

“Abstract”
Over the past two decades doctors and research scientists have been trying to find a cure for the incurable virus of AIDS. Millions of people worldwide including infants have contracted this disease from birth. AIDS was first identified in the early 1980’s in America and most of its victims were drug users and gay African American men. Over sixteen thousand African American men and women have been diagnosed with AIDS which is over 50% of the world of the African American population. By 1990, over 30 million people were diagnosed with this disease. The need for an AIDS vaccine is very imperative because the death toll for people with AIDS is drastically increasing every year at a towering rate. Ever since AIDS was discovered, there have been several attempts to find a cure for this disease. Unfortunately, after twenty years of research; doctors and scientists are still no closer to finding a cure than when AIDS was first identified.

“The Quest for an AIDS Vaccine”
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a medical condition that one must have tested positive on a HIV test and have another disease that is known as an "AIDS defining disease." These diseases include: yeast infections (candida), cervical cancer, Kaposis Sarcoma, tuberculosis, cytomegalovirus, and pneumonia. AIDS was first identified in the United States during the early 1980’s. In 1981, the first cases of AIDS were detected in California and New York and the first cases are among gay men then injecting drug users. By 1986, more than 38,000 cases of AIDS have been reported from 85 countries. Also by this time AIDS is reported among haemophiliacs and Haitians in the United States and reported by several European countries. In addition to it beginning to spread worldwide, it was reported among non-drug using women and children. In 1987; azidothymidine (AZT) was the first drug approved for treating AIDS. In 1988, The American government conducts a national AIDS education campaign and in 1890 there were 8 million people who had HIV. AIDS is a deadly virus that affects millions of people worldwide. Doctors and scientists have been conducting ongoing research for years beginning in 1990 and here we are today; two decades later and we are still no closer to a real cure than we were when the disease first identified.
“The Needs for an AIDS Vaccine”

Statistics indicate that the number of people living with HIV rose from around 8 million in 1990 to 33 million by the end of 2009. It is estimated that more than one million people are living with HIV in the United States and that more than half a million have died after developing AIDS. Since the beginning of the epidemic, an estimated 617,025 people with AIDS have died in the United States. Due to these high statistics; the need for an AIDS vaccine is very important. To reduce the amount of people who have AIDS; a partially effective HIV vaccine would help prevent the large spread of this deadly disease. Research shows that, a vaccine that is 50 percent effective, given to just 30 percent of the population could reduce the number of HIV infections in the developing world by more than half over 15 years. An HIV and AIDS vaccine that was more than 50 percent effective could cut the infection rate by more than 80 percent. Children could be given an HIV and AIDS vaccine before ever being exposed to HIV, and ideally this would protect them from all routes of HIV transmission. Vaccinating large numbers of people would probably require relatively little equipment and expertise, and would be much simpler and cheaper than providing antiretroviral treatment for those already infected.
“How Might an AIDS Vaccine Work?” An HIV and AIDS vaccine could be very effective in two ways; a preventive vaccine would stop HIV from occurring altogether, whereas a therapeutic vaccine would not stop infection, but would prevent or temporary