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Volume 6 Supplement 3

AIDS Vaccine 2009

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P15-20. Developing a national policy agenda for the Canadian HIV vaccine initiative

Background

The Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative (CHVI) is a five-year initiative between the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and it represents a significant Canadian contribution to the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise that seeks to accelerate the development of safe, effective, affordable and globally accessible HIV vaccines. A national HIV vaccines policy agenda is currently being developed as one measure to contribute to domestic and international HIV vaccines policy-related efforts.

Methods

To ensure alignment with global HIV vaccines efforts, a consultation process with international experts was undertaken in fall 2008 – winter 2009 to seek input on key policy issues and potential areas of focus for a Canadian HIV vaccines policy agenda.

Results

The consultations identified several key policy issues that need to be resolved domestically and globally on the policy front. These include: focussing on the science to develop an effective vaccine; assist low- and middle-income countries in developing regulatory systems and processes to enable approval and implementation of clinical trials, and; positioning HIV vaccines as part of a comprehensive prevention approach. The consultations also identified areas of focus for the CHVI policy agenda: share Canada's unique approach to HIV prevention; initiate and supporting ongoing global policy dialogue; engage global partners to raise profile of HIV/AIDS issues, and; provide support to global approaches to address regulatory barriers in HIV vaccine development and delivery.

Conclusion

The consultation process was very valuable in identifying current global policy issues and proposed areas for inclusion in a CHVI Policy Agenda. The consultations also demonstrated the interest and support for a more formalized global policy network under the leadership of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise. Canada is well positioned to develop a sound policy agenda, one that will contribute to both domestic and global goals to advance the development of an HIV vaccine.

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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Sarazin, V., Jonsdottir, L., Sternthal, S. et al. P15-20. Developing a national policy agenda for the Canadian HIV vaccine initiative. Retrovirology 6 (Suppl 3), P221 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-6-S3-P221

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-4690-6-S3-P221

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