Our top content coverage from the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) 2025 highlighted developments in several infectious diseases, including the safety of the HIVconsvX vaccine in those taking antiretroviral therapy (ART), the promise of HIV self-testing, and modeling COVID-19 immunity and vaccine impact.
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5. Modeling COVID-19 Immunity and Vaccination Impact
In this video interview, Mia Moore, PhD, discussed the research that she presented during the conference. The poster, “Estimating Population Immunity and Impact of COVID-19 Vaccination in Washington and Oregon,” focused on how many hospitalizations were averted due to patients taking at least 1 dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Moore expressed her hope that the results, which found that vaccines were effective against hospitalizations, would help develop future strategies to address COVID-19 and would lead to the continued recommendation of the COVID-19 vaccine. Future research, she said, should focus on the effect of the vaccines on different age groups to compare hospitalizations between those vaccinated and not vaccinated.
4. Couples Counseling Key to HIV Prevention and Maternal Care
Lynae Darbes, PhD, spoke in this video interview about her research on the effectiveness of home-based interventions for HIV prevention in couples who lived in Kenya. She presented “Efficacy of Home Visits for Pregnant Couples to Promote Couple HIV Testing and Family Health” at CROI. Darbes emphasized that the idea behind the study was to involve men in the health of their significant other, as men often have a lot of influence in family decision-making. The counseling was tailored for the couple, focusing on treatment strategies for couples who both had HIV and focusing on preventing a partner from acquiring HIV if only 1 of them was living with the virus. She also noted that actually getting couples into therapy remains a challenge, despite its efficacy.
3. Self-Testing in HIV Shows Promise in Early Studies
Self-testing for HIV was the focus of a panel held during CROI 2025. Experts presented evidence that self-testing could encourage people to test across the country and could lead to quicker uptake of ART. It involves the collection of oral fluid or blood to insert into a rapid test that can give a positive or negative result; individuals who receive positive results should seek a physician to get further blood work to confirm the diagnosis. Mateo Prochazka, technical officer at the World Health Organization, stated that linking a patient to the appropriate services after that test is just as important as the test being done at all. Treatment of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and syphilis may also benefit from patients being able to self-test.
2. Global Status of HIV/AIDS Pandemic Takes Center Stage in Opening Session
Chris Beyrer, MD, MPH, director of Duke Global Health Institute, gave the keynote speech to start CROI 2025, focusing on the current state of the HIV/AIDS pandemic across the globe. Although mortality has been on a downward trend, Beyrer considered controlling the HIV epidemic by 2030 to be unlikely due to previously unmet goals and the new pushback to the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the United States Agency for International Development. He also acknowledged that addressing HIV in Africa could be more complicated with the cut in funding to PEPFAR. Restoring PEPFAR was of the utmost importance to continue working to control the HIV epidemic in this area, he said.
1. HIVconsvX Vaccine Shows Safety, Immune Response in People on ART
In this video interview, Nilu Goonetilleke, PhD, discussed the results of her research, which focused on T-cell–targeting vaccines in HIV. The modified vaccinia Ankara–vectored vaccines using Mosaic-1 and Mosaic-2 immunogens (HIVconsvX) were safe to use in patients included in the study. The vaccine was able to target the same 6 HIV regions and elicited an immune response in those taking ART to treat their HIV. Goonetilleke explained that there were no differences in response based on age but observed a linear relationship between age and immune response, which will require further study to evaluate. She also said that future research could focus on giving different vaccines to target different parts of the immune response.
