TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The administration of Donald Trump has reportedly terminated funding for several HIV vaccine research programs. Researchers were informed that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has opted to focus on existing HIV prevention methods rather than continue investing in vaccine development.
As cited in an Anadolu report on Saturday, May 31, 2025, this decision impacts leading research centers, including the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute. Both institutions have received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 2012. Clinical trials supported by the NIH's HIV Vaccine Trials Network have also been temporarily suspended.
HIV Vaccine Funding
The HHS has instructed the NIH not to approve new funding for HIV vaccine research in the upcoming fiscal year, with only a few limited exceptions. New budgetary accounting rules targeting HIV vaccine grants will make it more challenging for these projects to receive funding by requiring the full cost of grants to be accounted for within a single fiscal year.
HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard commented on the funding cuts, explaining the complexities and overlap of HIV-AIDS programs. She stated that the agency aims to maximize the impact of federal expenditures and ensure oversight, noting that 27 separate HIV-AIDS programs have collectively spent US$7.5 billion.
Hilliard affirmed that critical HIV-AIDS programs will continue under the new entity proposed by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., called the Administration for a Healthy America.
Immunologist Dennis Burton at Scripps Research highlighted promising progress in ongoing clinical trials for an HIV vaccine. "This is a setback of probably a decade for HIV vaccine research," Burton said.
As reported by CBS, the funding cancellation occurred just weeks before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) deadline on June 19, 2025, to decide on the approval of lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable drug designed to prevent HIV.
The drug, commercialized by the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, was developed based on NIH-supported research on HIV treatment. The availability of this drug has contributed to a significant decline in HIV cases worldwide for prevention. However, the NIH refutes the claim that a vaccine is unnecessary for HIV prevention, emphasizing that a vaccine is one method to suppress HIV-AIDS.
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