Ever since HIV was identified as the cause for AIDS 30 years ago, the HIV virus has become one of the greatest challenges of public health facing all countries of the world. According to UNAIDS, death due to AIDS was estimated to close to 1.6 million in 2012. There were 2.3 million new HIV infections, and about 35.3 million people currently living with HIV. Given the pace at which the HIV virus is spreading, it is most likely that AIDS would take more lives than any other infectious disease in the future years to come. Inspite of well-expanded programs of prevention and treatment which are currently enabling the stakeholders to address the illness and death associated with HIV and AIDS, the HIV vaccines is considered to be the best solution to end this disease successfully.
HIV/AIDS has become of the leading infectious disease which is taking a huge death toll across the globe, even surpassing TB and malaria. Irrespective of whether the country is developed or developing, the disease is increasingly becoming prevalent, though with serious impact in the developing countries. It has been observed that almost nine out of every ten HIV infections are being diagnosed in the developing countries, and two-thirds are in Sub-Saharan Africa. India currently has close to 4 million infected people, which is the largest number of infected persons of any country in the world. Despite of the combating efforts, the Asian and other developing regions are increasingly feeling the heat as HIV continues to spread at a significant rate.
In recent years there have been significant breakthroughs achieved in terms of prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. The future is also likely to continue to witness similar technological and medical success in terms of new drugs and an efficient vaccine, with the help of adequate funding. Certain developments like a new treatment to reduce transmissibility in drug users and new efforts to strengthen the immune system have the potential to develop further and provide better healthcare services to the patients in the future.
It is expected that in the next 5-8 years, the pharmaceutical companies would focus more on the development of a successful efficient vaccine to control the spread of this disease. The allocation of resources should necessarily reflect ongoing, strategic prioritization of candidates in the pipeline. With the progress of trials and accumulation of information on the safety and efficacy of new products, there is an urgent demand for strategizing the product pipelines and the prioritization of the decisions. There needs to be complete scrutiny of every single technological area of HIV prevention R&D so as to reflect the best methods of channelizing the funds which are limited in nature. The funds need to be specifically directed towards only those products and approaches which have a high probability of succeeding, instead of those which are less promising.
“HIV Vaccine Market Opportunity & Clinical Pipeline Analysis” Report Highlights: