The Infectious Disease & Vaccine Therapeutic Areas play an important role in discovering and developing innovative medicines and vaccines to treat and prevent infectious diseases, including HIV and Ebola. Vaccines are one of the greatest public health success stories - and Merck has been discovering, developing, and delivering vaccines to help prevent disease for over 100 years.
Infectious Diseases
HIV: Our legacy in innovative HIV science continues
We remember when HIV was one of society's most daunting challenges, when millions of people lost their lives to the devastating AIDS epidemic. Our scientists embarked on an urgent mission to unravel the inner workings of the virus, which led to groundbreaking research in HIV.
Addressing unmet medical needs
Infectious disease research remains critical worldwide. The greatest mortality is from respiratory diseases, followed by tuberculosis, HIV, and Malaria. We are active in all these disease areas and more. Our focus is on the invention of novel medicines to address these significant unmet medical needs.
Ebola: Joining a partnership to combat a deadly virus
Since the emergence of the Ebola virus in 1976, periodic outbreaks have been a global health challenge. We are proud to be part of the global public-private partnership that has united government, industry, community groups, scientists, health care workers and ordinary people, to come together to help fight this deadly disease.