Bold takeaway: CROI 2025 highlights a clearer path forward in safely expanding HIV treatment and COVID-19 prevention, while also sparking debate about funding priorities and future strategies.
This rewrite preserves the original report’s core information and expands with clarifications and examples to help learners grasp the material more easily. The conference underscored several notable threads: the safety and potential of HIV-targeted vaccines for people on ART, the growing promise of HIV self-testing, and insights into COVID-19 immunity modeling and vaccine impact.
Key highlights from CROI 2025
- Modeling COVID-19 immunity and vaccination impact
In a video interview, Mia Moore, PhD, shared the conference-presented poster titled “Estimating Population Immunity and Impact of COVID-19 Vaccination in Washington and Oregon.” The study quantified how many hospitalizations were prevented by at least one vaccine dose. Moore’s takeaway is that vaccines continued to reduce severe illness, supporting ongoing vaccination recommendations. She also called for future work to examine vaccine effects across age groups to compare hospitalization rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.
Read more: https://www.ajmc.com/view/modeling-covid-19-immunity-and-vaccination-impact
Couples counseling as a cornerstone of HIV prevention and maternal care
In a video interview, Lynae Darbes, PhD, discussed findings from home-based interventions in Kenya aimed at HIV prevention within couples. The presentation, “Efficacy of Home Visits for Pregnant Couples to Promote Couple HIV Testing and Family Health,” emphasized engaging men in family health decisions, given their influence on outcomes. The intervention was tailored to couples with HIV, focusing on treatment strategies for both partners and preventing transmission if only one is living with HIV. Darbes noted that, despite its demonstrated effectiveness, getting couples into therapy remains a practical challenge.
Read more: https://www.ajmc.com/view/couples-counseling-key-to-hiv-prevention-and-maternal-careHIV self-testing shows promise in early studies
A panel at CROI 2025 highlighted self-testing as a potential catalyst for broader testing and faster ART initiation. Self-testing typically uses oral fluid or finger-prick blood samples to produce rapid results, after which individuals with positive findings should seek confirmatory blood work with a clinician. Mateo Prochazka of the World Health Organization stressed that linking positive self-test results to appropriate care is as crucial as the test itself. Beyond HIV, self-testing could also support screening for hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and syphilis.
Read more: https://www.ajmc.com/view/self-testing-in-hiv-shows-promise-in-early-studiesGlobal HIV/AIDS pandemic on the opening stage
Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, of Duke Global Health Institute delivered the opening keynote, outlining the global state of HIV/AIDS. While mortality trends are downward, Beyrer cautioned that eradicating HIV by 2030 seems unlikely given unmet goals and renewed funding challenges to PEPFAR and USAID. He underscored that reduced PEPFAR funding complicates HIV efforts in Africa and called for restoring support to sustain progress.
Read more: https://www.ajmc.com/view/global-status-of-hiv-aids-pandemic-takes-center-stage-in-opening-sessionHIVconsvX vaccine demonstrates safety and immune response in ART patients
In another video interview, Nilu Goonetilleke, PhD, reported on HIVconsvX—an HIV vaccine targeting conserved regions via a modified vaccinia Ankara vector using Mosaic-1 and Mosaic-2 immunogens. The vaccine appeared safe for participants on ART and elicited T-cell–mediated responses against the same six HIV regions. Importantly, age did not affect overall safety, though there was a linear relationship between age and immune response that warrants further study. Future work may explore tailored vaccines that target different immune pathways.
Read more: https://www.ajmc.com/view/hivconsvx-vaccine-shows-safety-immune-response-in-people-on-art
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