It took months to come up with a vaccine for COVID-19, but after nearly 40 years, there's still no vaccine for HIV.The question of why is being asked a lot. But there's another question: Can the technology used to find a COVID-19 vaccine help find an HIV vaccine?In the early 80s, the thinking was we'd probably have an HIV vaccine by now."AmfAR scientists are working on not only how to cure HIV but how to confirm HIV is cured," said Dr. Rowena Johnston, amfAR (American Foundation for AIDS Research) vice president and director of research.That was two years ago, and it still hasn't happened."And there's a reason why we haven't had a vaccine for 40 years," said Dr. Anthony Fehr.Fehr is an assistant professor of infectious disease in the Department of Molecular Biosciences on the Lawrence campus at the University of Kansas. There are reasons why what worked for COVID-19 may or may not work for HIV."Well I guess, I guess what you should understand is that HIV is a very different virus," Fehr said.Part of the problem, like COVID-19, once HIV is in the body, it creates its own moving target."The virus actually integrates into your DNA so the virus actually inserts its own copy of its DNA into your own DNA so you really can't get rid of it," Fehr said.This becomes an even bigger issue since HIV infects a person's T-cells, you're then more vulnerable to other diseases or infections. Still, researchers keep looking. In April, early work on an HIV vaccine showed promise in a limited clinical trial.But Fehr believes we could still be years away."I would be, I would hesitate to say that it will happen within the next five years, but I could be surprised," Fehr said.Great strides have been made in HIV treatment, but a vaccine is needed to prevent infection. There is still much work to do before knowing if the vaccine being studied at the Scripps Research Institute in California will work.