evidence: AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There is no evidence that any COVID-19 vaccine contains HIV, an expert in infectious diseases and vaccinology told The Associated Press. Experts have repeatedly shot down similar claims in the past, explaining that the vaccines also do not make recipients more susceptible to contracting HIV. [...] The claim is baseless. The COVID-19 vaccines do not contain HIV, according to John Swartzberg, a clinical professor of infectious diseases and vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley. [...] Various conspiracy theories falsely linking the COVID-19 vaccines to HIV and AIDS have spread online in the past, and other experts have reiterated that there is no connection. "There is nothing in the COVID vaccines that contain either HIV or increase a body’s susceptibility to contracting HIV," Dr. Monica Gandhi, associate chief of the division of HIV, infectious diseases and global medicine at the University of California San Francisco Medical School, told the AP in 2021.