Live today - Lecture, Barnard's Inn Hall, Wednesday, 16 Sep 2026 - 18:00

Is the HIV Pandemic Over?

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A stark advert picturing a gravestone chiselled with ‘AIDS: DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE’ captured the horror of this disease in the 1980s. Now, for HIV-infected people able to access anti-retroviral therapies, life expectancy is normal.

How were these amazing medicines developed and how have they transformed lives? Why is it so difficult to eradicate HIV or to develop a vaccine to prevent infection? What does the future hold in the quest to stop the global scourge of AIDS?

A stark advert picturing a gravestone chiselled with ‘AIDS: DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE’ captured the horror of this disease in the 1980s. Now, for HIV-infected people able to access anti-retroviral therapies, life expectancy is normal.

How were these amazing medicines developed and how have they transformed lives? Why is it so difficult to eradicate HIV or to develop a vaccine to prevent infection? What does the future hold in the quest to stop the global scourge of AIDS?

Professor Matthew Higgins

Professor Matt Higgins

Gresham Professor of Physic

Matt Higgins is fascinated by parasites which cause human diseases. These amazing organisms have evolved many tricks to enable them to survive within our bodies...

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