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Are we headed for an HIV vaccine? Researchers reported Saturday an encouraging progress, with an experimental vaccine that provoked an immune response in humans and protected macaques from infection.
The development of this vaccine potential, safe for humans, is now advanced enough to test 2,600 women in southern Africa.
"These results represent a milestone" said study director, virologist Dan Barouch, in a statement of 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 declared.
Two-thirds of macaques protected by the vaccine
Two-thirds of rhesus macaques were protected by the vaccine in laboratory tests. The results of the life-size test, called Imbokodo (rock, in Zulu), are expected in 2021 or 2022. "It will be only the fifth concept of vaccine against HIV whose effectiveness will be tested in the 35 years and a few History of the Epidemic " Dr. Barouch emphasized
Another, called RV144, showed that he was protecting man from HIV to a certain extent. In 2009, a study indicated that it had reduced the risk of infection by 16.2% among 16,000 volunteers in Thailand.
A breakthrough?
The study published Saturday reports the results of a test in 393 healthy, seronegative adults aged 18-50 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 provoking an immune response. But this was "robust" welcomed Professor Barouche.
The tests showed the safety. Only five participants reported adverse effects, such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, dizziness or back pain. In a separate study, these same vaccines offered protection to two-thirds of the 72 macaques to which the researchers subsequently attempted to inoculate the virus.
"We Need a Vaccine" [19659002Otherexpertsinterviewedhavewelcomedthisprogress "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 experienced this, promising experimental vaccines that have not materialized" .
For the French Jean-Daniel Lelièvre, from the Vaccine Research Institute (National Agency for AIDS Research) : "It's probably not the definitive vaccine, but it can be a phenomenal breakthrough" . According to him, "in the best case" this research will produce a vaccine administrable in "almost 10 years" .
37 million seropositive in the world
] Some 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 an estimated 35 million of the 80 million people it has infected since it was diagnosed for the first time in the early 1980s.
Despite advances in medicine in prevention and the treatment of the disease (PrEP, antiretrovirals, tritherapies), the researchers insist on measures to not be infected: protection during bad, use of new syringes, sterilization of medical equipment …
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