Introduction

As we enter the third decade of the AIDS pandemic, there still remains no effective HIV preventive vaccine. As the numbers of those infected by HIV and dying from AIDS increase dramatically, the need for such a vaccine becomes ever more urgent. Several HIV candidate vaccines are at various stages of development. However, the successful development of effective HIV preventive vaccines is likely to require that many different candidate vaccines be studied simultaneously in different populations around the world. This in turn will require a large international cooperative effort drawing on partners from various health sectors, intergovernmental organizations, government, research institutions, industry, and affected populations. It will also require that these partners be able and willing to address the difficult ethical concerns that arise during the development of HIV vaccines.

In an effort to elucidate these ethical concerns, and to create forums where they could be discussed in full by those presently involved in, or considering, HIV vaccine development activities, the UNAIDS Secretariat convened meetings in Geneva (twice), Brazil, Thailand, Uganda and Washington during 1997–1999. These meetings included lawyers, activists, social scientists, ethicists, vaccine scientists, epidemiologists, representatives of NGOs, people living with HIV/AIDS, and people working in health policy. In the regional meetings, efforts were made to include people froma number of countries fromthat particular region.