The world’s first major HIV prevention campaigns targeted gay and bisexual men in US cities. They began around 1984 and were run by non-governmental organisations such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, AIDS Project Los Angeles and Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York. These community-based groups had for some time been teaching people about AIDS and how it was most likely acquired, but they found that this was not enough. Even men who saw friends suffer and die of AIDS found it difficult to make long-term lifestyle changes.
Across the world, a small but growing number of countries have reduced HIV prevalence through sound prevention efforts. The high rates of transmission of HIV result largely from failure to use the available and effective prevention strategies and tools, and poor coverage of HIV prevention programmes. HIV prevention services were only reaching 20% of people in need in 2005, while coverage for key populations at higher risk of exposure to HIV were considerably lower.
The HIV Prevention Trials Network is a worldwide collaborative clinical trials network that develops and tests the safety and efficacy of primarily non-vaccine interventions designed to prevent the transmission of HIV.