Comment by bigDinosaur

One thing I didn't realise with HIV is that initially the body does produce effective neutralising antibodies. That's what causes viral levels to decrease for the first few months, and also the slow decline that characterises chronic HIV before it turns into AIDS. It's just that HIV mutates far too quickly and the body cannot keep up. This makes me less hopeful about vaccines. I assume one will succeed eventually, just that it's a slog and will have many more failures.