The Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI) based in Entebbe, Uganda was recommended to host the Secretariat of the African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP), an initiative to support a coordinated international effort to promote the development of and future access to HIV vaccines suitable for use in Africa. The AAVP Secretariat has been based in Geneva, Switzerland since 2000. A transition of AAVP to a fully functional African programme began more than a year ago and should be complete by the first quarter of 2010.