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A policy working paper concerning the demand for an HIV vaccine usefully compares studies conducted globally and nationally, concerning both public and private sectors, in order to help inform future healthcare strategies and financial planning, and investment from industry in HIV vaccine research and development.

This policy brief highlights key issues in assessing the demand for an HIV vaccine, including what factors influence demand, such as efficacy and cost of vaccine candidates and acceptability among target populations, and differences between public and private sectors in their willingness to pay for a vaccine and political commitment.

This is a useful policy paper that assesses the total level of spending needed for AIDS vaccine research and development in the near future and the gap between current and projected spending. It considers the main stumbling blocks in vaccine research and development that could be significantly overcome with sufficient increase in spending: identification of high-quality candidate vaccines, increasing the number of such candidates entering clinical trials, and speeding up the establishment of clinical trials with faster recruitment of volunteers and regulatory approval.

This IAVI policy document advocates the need to ensure global access to future HIV vaccines. It starts from the premise that true access cannot be assumed for people living in the poorest nations or who belong to high risk groups.

IAVI's five-point action plan demands that any future vaccine be introduced simultaneously in both the industrialised North and developing South, that the necessary infrastructure be created to administer and monitor vaccines, and that vaccine development and distribution is funded by partnerships between the private and public sector.