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AIDS – Researchers say they have made progress on the hypothesis of a future HIV vaccine. The formula is safe enough to be tested on many thousands of African women.
– The drafting of LCI
Soon a vaccine against HIV? On Saturday, July 7, researchers report encouraging progress: an experimental vaccine has elicited an immune response in humans. As a result, the development of this vaccine potential, safe for humans, is now advanced enough to launch a test on 2,600 women in southern Africa.
"These results represent an important step," said the director of the study , virologist Dan Barouch, in a statement from The Lancet. Joined by other experts, he warned, however, that there was no guarantee that the following tests would be so positive. "We must remain cautious," he told AFP.
Moreover, the first results in real conditions are not expected before 2021 or 2022. Meanwhile, the study published Saturday reports the test results in 393 healthy, seronegative adults aged 18 to 50 in East Africa, South Africa, Thailand and the United States. Some received one of the possible vaccine combinations or a placebo, via four injections in 48 weeks.
These combinations were made of different types of HIV viruses, rendered sufficiently harmless, with the hope of eliciting an immune response. But this one was "robust", praised Pr. Barouche. Among the participants, five showed adverse effects, such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, dizziness or back pain.
For many experts, this experiment gives rise to much hope. "I can not repeat enough how much we need a vaccine," said François Venter of the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa). But "we have already known that, promising experimental vaccines that have not materialized."
Side of the National Agency for AIDS Research, the French Jean-Daniel Lelièvre says: "It is probably not the definitive vaccine, but it can be a phenomenal breakthrough. " According to him, "in the best case", this research will produce a manageable vaccine in "almost 10 years".
Tens of millions of deaths
Worldwide, 37 million people are living with HIV or AIDS, according to the World Health Organization, and 1.8 million cases are contracted each year.
The disease has killed some 35 million of the 80 million people it has infected since it was first diagnosed in the early 1980s.
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