IAVI REPORT – VOL. 16, NO. 3, 2012
Let me begin by addressing the elephant in the room. And I don’t mean the outcome of the general election.
As you’ve probably heard, we have had a rough few days in New York City, ever since Hurricane Sandy made landfall on October 29th, followed by a sizable nor’easter. The hurricane, which left a swathe of devastation along the coasts of New York and New Jersey, drove a tide of floodwater from the East River into the subbasement of the building that houses IAVI’s headquarters—and the offices of IAVI Report. This happened just as we were getting ready to send the current issue off to our printer—which is why the magazine is coming to you a few days later than usual.
Our building, needless to say, is now closed and we’ve all been working from home. But we consider ourselves lucky. A good many people lost their homes, possessions, and livelihoods to the storm. Some have suffered the loss of loved ones. We extend our deepest sympathies to them, and urge our readers to do what they can to extend a helping hand to the thousands across the area who are today picking up the pieces of their lives.
On to this issue of IAVI Report. In the pages that follow you’ll read one major article that covers a brewing debate over how quickly people infected with HIV should be offered antiretroviral therapy. It explores existing evidence that early treatment improves prognoses, alternative takes on that evidence, and studies that seek to test the disputed hypothesis. Another big story surveys major news out of the 2012 AIDS Vaccine conference, which was held in Boston in September and had a notable emphasis on broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV.
Our Research Briefs, meanwhile, focus on competing strategies for targeting South Africa’s epidemic with expanded HIV testing and treatment—and what conflicting computational models say about the potential impact of each—and the induction of SIV control in rhesus macaques via immunization. Finally, we include in this issue aninterview with MHRP director Nelson Michael.
You’ll notice as you read through this issue that HIV researchers seem more optimistic than ever before about the prospects of a wide variety of HIV treatment and prevention strategies. We hope you will emerge from this issue of IAVI Report better informed about what fuels their optimism—and perhaps as inspired as they are these days.
—Unmesh Kher