With over 36 million people living with HIV globally and over one million new infections each year, the disease remains one of the greatest global health threats of our time. In an effort to combat this ongoing public health crisis, Johnson & Johnson is committed to continued innovation in the fields of prevention, treatment, and cure; in fact, Johnson & Johnson has a 25-year legacy in its work around HIV.

This year, Global Citizen hosted the Mandela 100 Global Citizen Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was inspired by Nelson Mandela’s dedication to encouraging people to use their collective voices to speak for the most underrepresented people and held in honor of what would be his 100th birthday. The festival highlighted the impact people around the world can have to end extreme poverty, with health-related topics – such as infectious diseases like HIV – being critical components in this effort. For the third consecutive year, Johnson & Johnson served as the Major Health Partner for Global Citizen, helping to engage millions of people who share the same vision of helping change the trajectory of health for humanity.

On December 1, Johnson & Johnson stood in support of the global health community to mark the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day as we continued to raise awareness around the global burden of HIV and work to #makeHIVhistory. Following the Johnson & Johnson announcement at the Global Citizen Festival in New York City earlier this year, in which Johnson & Johnson shared an update on the progress of a large-scale study to test a new HIV vaccine, Dr. Paul Stoffels, vice chair of the executive committee and chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson, and Dr. Glenda Grey, Imbokodo principal investigator and president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, took the stage at the Global Citizen South Africa Festival to reaffirm the company’s commitment to identifying a preventative vaccine. Joined by actress and activist Danai Gurira, Dr. Stoffels commended the commitment of frontline healthcare workers in changing the course of history by eliminating new cases of HIV, as well as HIV-related deaths.

Through the development of new single-tablet regimens for HIV patients, Johnson & Johnson has furthered progress toward the first long-acting injectable regimen. Additionally, Johnson & Johnson and its partners have initiated a preventive HIV vaccine efficacy study in Africa, aiming to help stop the spread of HIV that has plagued communities for decades.

Johnson & Johnson is committed to improving health outcomes for patients around the world and understands nurses are at the forefront of life-changing innovations that ultimately change the trajectory of health for the better. You can learn more about the Johnson & Johnson commitment to supporting nurse innovators here.

_{Photo Credit: Jonathan Burton}