The National Institutes of Health and partners have launched a large clinical trial to assess whether an experimental HIV vaccine regimen is safe and able to prevent HIV infection. The new Phase 2b proof-of-concept study called Imbokodo, aims to enroll 2,600 HIV-negative women in sub-Saharan Africa.

The vaccine regimen being tested in Imbokodo is based on “mosaic” immunogens — vaccine components designed to induce immune responses against a wide variety of global HIV strains.