National Minority AIDS Council Building Healthier Communities

 

Despite much research, there still is not a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. All Americans, especially communities of color and men who have sex with men, need to learn more about HIV vaccine research in order to make an HIV vaccine a reality. National HIV Vaccine Awareness Day provides a great opportunity to thank the thousands of people who are working to help find an HIV preventive vaccine--the clinical trial volunteers, health professionals, community members, and the researchers.

Scientists are working to develop a safe and effective HIV vaccine. To succeed, they will need thousands of HIV-negative people to support HIV vaccine studies and encourage those who volunteer. You can't get HIV from the vaccine study, but you can help end the AIDS epidemic.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of public misunderstanding about AIDS and HIV vaccine research. The lack of accurate knowledge is having an extremely negative impact  on African American and Latino support for the research being done.

Here are a few of the misconceptions that surround HIV/AIDS and HIV Vaccine research:

• "AIDS was created to kill Black and Hispanic people."

• "There is already a vaccine that could prevent the spread of HIV, but because it only works on Blacks and Hispanics, no one wants to invest in it."

• "Participating in an HIV vaccine clinical trial increases your chances of becoming infected with the disease."

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has played a leading role in providing communities most affected by HIV with information on HIV vaccine research. NIAID’s HIV Vaccine Research Education Initiative (NHVREI) is a partnership program that seeks to engage communities, national and local organizations to increase knowledge about, support for, and the willingness to participate in HIV vaccine research. Fourteen local community organizations and five national organizations participate in the program. NMAC is one of the national partners.

 

Since joining the NHVREI program in March of 2008, NMAC has spearheaded a broad spectrum of social marketing and outreach activities to educate its constituents about the safety and efficacy of HIV vaccine research and the importance of public support for the research activities.

 

Supporting vaccine research is easy. Get educated and pass the knowledge you gain along to others. The Be the Generation website – operated by NIAID is a great educational resource. 

Below are additional downloads and links that may be of interest:

HIV Vaccine Research Newsletters

• HIV Vaccine Research Press Release
• 2008 HIV Vaccine Research Newsletter
• 2009 HIV Vaccine Research Newsletter

• 2010 HIV Vaccine Research Newsletter

 

HIV Vaccine Awareness Postcards

• HIV Vaccine Pocket Card - English and Spanish
  

• "Version 1 - With Your Help We Can Win"

• "Version 2 - Stop AIDS" 

  "Version 3 - Global Pandemic"

HIV Vaccine Research Resources

• About HIV Vaccine Awareness
• Vaccine Tutorial - NMAC.org-based
  (The tutorial requires you to register, as well as create a username and password. This will allow you to re-enter the tutorial as desired.)
• Vaccine Tutorial - Learning Management System-based
  (You'll have to create a username and password for the LMS as well, which will grant you access to the other trainings current available through this system.)
  
• Resources and Research
• Information on How to Get Involved