Uniting various diseases under its umbrella, the field of infectious diseases is a popular field of clinical research. While public health system plays the main role in preventing society from infections, novel medications must be developed simultaneously.
There is currently no available cure for HIV infection but according to current trends, the future is looking brighter. A lot of advanced HIV clinical trials around the globe are dedicating their research and development to finding a treatment option. New critical drug discovery such as the antiretroviral treatment is preventing HIV infection from progressing, allowing people to enjoy normal life spans. Thanks to these therapies, HIV infection is now classified as a manageable chronic disease. One of Phase I HIV clinical trials shows that the immune checkpoint inhibitor Pembrolizumab was found to be a safe medication for various tumor types among patients living with HIV infection. Further research and development are essential to achieve successful results and new HIV infection treatment options.
Although generally infections with human papillomavirus (HPV) cause no symptoms, continual genital HPV infection can trigger cervical cancer in females. However, HPV infection has vaccines which prevent the disease. According to HPV clinical trials marketed HPV vaccines (a bivalent, a quadrivalent, and a nonavalent) are highly efficacious and initial post-marketing surveillance confirms safety of HPV vaccines.
Furthermore, commonly known as herpes, this lifelong infection with the herpes simplex virus (HSV) is classified into two types (HSV-1 and HSV-2). The World Health Organization (WHO) puts effort in accelerating research to develop innovative approaches for prevention and control of HSV infection. More than a few candidate HSV vaccines and topical microbicides are being studied. “Prime and Pull” strategy is one of the modern methods of vaccination for HSV-2 infection. The goal is for these HSV vaccines to act equally to that currently used to prevent HPV infections, and thus drastically reduce the occurrence of HSV infection in near future.
