Several scientists and federal health officials say the Trump administration has begun funding a large number of HIV vaccine research, saying the current approach is enough to deal with the virus.

The notice was communicated to the researchers Friday, and the NIH officials told the researchers that the Department of Health and Human Services had chosen to “take the approach currently available to eliminate HIV.”

Several scientists say cuts will shut down two major HIV vaccine research efforts first funded by NIH in 2012 at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute. A Moderna spokesman said that clinical trials by vaccine manufacturers have been conducted through NIH's HIV vaccine trial network and have also been stopped.

A senior NIH official said HHS also instructed the agency not to provide more funding for HIV vaccine research in the next fiscal year, with only a few exceptions.

Changes in budget rules specifically for HIV vaccine research are also expected to lead to another ruling for the NIH award initiated by scientists, an official said.

The change will be completed in the short term, expanding the upfront cost of the study into the agency-funded HIV vaccine. The official said the NIH program allocated five-year grants to the cost of five-year grants, but instead planned to earn money from the HIV vaccine from years of grants, which all came over the past year, making it difficult for them to get funding.

A HHS spokesman told CBS News that “complex and duplicate health plans have led to serious repetition,” he said, “27 separate plans to address HIV/AIDS” cost $7.5 billion.

"The government believes that the United States should have the best medical research in the world. To this end, we are promoting policies to maximize the dollar impact of every federal taxpayer and ensure proper oversight of this funding."

Hilliard claimed that in Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

"For the design and development of HIV vaccines, we have started to see the lights at the end of the tunnel after years of research. It's a terrible time. We're starting to get closer. We've gotten good results from clinical trials."

Burton warned that even if future governments decide to change their HIV funding curriculum, their HIV vaccine research cannot simply be restarted. He said the ongoing experiments will be shut down and researchers formed a study of the issue that would be forced to focus their careers on other topics.

"This is a decision that will last forever. It could be a decade-long setback in HIV vaccine research," Burton said.

The funding was cancelled weeks before the June 19 deadline for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve Lenacapavir approval, a twice-year drug that prevents HIV.

The drug was brought to the commercial market by drugmaker Gilead Sciences, based on research on early HIV drugs supported by NIH. The availability of the drug could lead to a significant decline in HIV cases worldwide, as one study found it 100% effective in preventing transmission.

An NIH official who has no right to speak out publicly denounced the effectiveness of current HIV prevention strategies that mean no vaccine is needed anymore. “The only way to end the HIV epidemic in the United States and the global HIV epidemic is with the vaccine,” they said.

For researchers, developing an effective HIV vaccine has been an elusive goal, although scientists have made breakthroughs in the field.

"Hidden virus has created barriers for us, which is unparalleled in vaccine science. We have to understand what each barrier is and design ways to overcome it. This virus is mutated so quickly."

Haines said their work is essentially combining a variety of different vaccines as part of their design of effective HIV vaccine methods.

He praised Lenacapavir as "a wonderful development in the field", but said vaccines are still needed. Lenacapavir needs injections every six months to remain effective, and it is a challenging proposition even before sharply cutting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s domestic HIV program and the U.S.-supported HIV/AIDS Foreign Aid Program.

“Hopefully, we add HIV vaccines to all the precautions that ultimately allow us to end the pandemic,” Haynes said.