ABOUT THE POPULATION COUNCIL
Millennium Development Goals

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases

• Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
• Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

The goal of the Population Council's HIV and AIDS program is to arrest the spread of the HIV epidemic in developing countries and to enable people to reduce or eliminate the impact of HIV on their own health, and on their families, communities, and societies. To achieve these goals, the Council brings its wide array of capabilities, including biomedical expertise to develop candidate microbicides and to explore the immunology of HIV infection; social science and health-related knowledge to understand better the social, behavioral, and biomedical aspects of HIV and AIDS; strong relationships with policymakers and program managers that facilitate the creation of evidence-based policies; and the time-honed know-how needed to assist in the development, evaluation, and scale-up of effective service-delivery models. Two of the Council's key anti-HIV initiatives are the Horizons program and the microbicides program.

Horizons is a team of US-based and international organizations, directed by the Population Council, working to prevent the spread of HIV and mitigate its impact on individuals and communities. Funded by the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief through the United States Agency for International Development, the program designs, implements, and evaluates innovative service delivery strategies.

The Population Council has been working for two decades to develop safe and effective vaginal microbicides. The recently completed Phase 3 clinical trial of the Council’s candidate microbicide Carraguard® was a milestone for microbicides development.

The Carraguard Phase 3 trial did not show that Carraguard is effective in preventing HIV transmission during vaginal sex. However, Carraguard was shown to be safe for use during vaginal sex over a two-year period. This finding is important because Carraguard is an ingredient of next-generation microbicide candidates being developed at the Council. Several of these candidates combine Carraguard with one or more ingredients that have been shown to be effective in preventing virus transmission in laboratory settings. Carraguard is the first candidate microbicide to have completed a Phase 3 trial without any safety concerns. (news release) 

Population Council research on malaria has examined the impact of the disease on safe motherhood and general mortality.

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HIV and AIDS Programs
(The Population Council's projects on HIV and AIDS are too numerous to list here; the large programs listed below provide links to information on specific projects.)

• HIV and AIDS Program

• Horizons (1997–ongoing)

• Microbicides (1986–ongoing)

Malaria Project

• The Potential for Sustainability of Malaria in Pregnancy Initiatives (2005–2006)

See Also

• "Complex role for marriage in HIV risk, studies find," Population Briefs, May 2007

• "Could eliminating malaria significantly extend life expectancy?" Population Briefs, June 2006