HIV vaccine able to protect people shows promising results :: Kenya

An HIV vaccine that has the potential to protect people around the world against the virus has yielded promising results.

The treatment, which aims to provide immunity against various strains of the virus, produced an anti-HIV immune system response in tests on 393 people, a study found in the Lancet.

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He also protected some monkeys against a virus similar to HIV.

More tests are now needed to determine whether the immune response produced can prevent HIV infection in people.

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Approximately 37 million people worldwide are living with HIV or AIDS, and an estimated 1.8 million new cases each year.

But despite advances in HIV treatment, both a cure and a vaccine against the virus have remained elusive here.

The drug Prep, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, is effective in preventing HIV infection, but, unlike the vaccine, it must be taken regularly, even daily, to prevent the virus from getting infected. install.

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Inventing a vaccine has proven to be a huge challenge for scientists, in part because there are so many strains of the virus, but also because HIV is able to mutate. .

Previous attempts at HIV vaccines have been limited to specific strains of the virus found in some parts of the world.

But for this "mosaic" vaccine, scientists have developed a treatment consisting of pieces of different HIV viruses.

The hope is that it could offer much better protection against the almost limitless number of HIV strains found in the world.

In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, scientists tested various combinations of the mosaic vaccine in people aged 18 to 50 who did not have HIV and were in good health.

Participants from the United States, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa and Thailand received four vaccinations within 48 weeks.

All vaccine combinations produced an anti-HIV immune response and were shown to be safe.

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Scientists have also conducted a parallel study where they gave rhesus monkeys the vaccine to protect them from the simian immunodeficiency virus – a virus similar to HIV that infects monkeys.

The mosaic vaccine combination that has shown the most promise in humans has been found to protect 67% of 72 monkeys from getting the disease.

"These results represent a milestone," said Dan Barouch, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and senior author of the study.

However, Professor Barouch also cautioned that the results should be interpreted with caution.

Although the vaccine triggers a response in the immune system of people who took it, it is not clear whether this would be enough to fight the virus and prevent infection.

"The challenges in the development of an HIV vaccine are unprecedented, and the ability to induce specific immune responses to HIV does not necessarily indicate that a vaccine will protect humans against HIV infection, "he added.

& # 39; Promising Signs & # 39;

Nevertheless, the promising results of the study mean that researchers will then test the treatment of 2,600 women in southern Africa who are at risk of contracting the disease – one of five vaccines to reach this stage so-called efficiency tests.

Only one vaccine has already shown evidence of protection against HIV.

A vaccine tested in Thailand lowered the rate of human infection by 31%, but the effect was considered too low to bring it to a common use.

Dr. Michael Brady, medical director of the Terrence Higgins Trust, said it was early for the vaccine, but that the signs were "promising."

"However, it is important to be cautious and to be clear that there is a lot of work to be done before an effective HIV vaccine is readily available."

Dr. Brady added that in the meantime, there were already effective tools to prevent the spread of the disease, such as contraception and treatment for HIV-positive people that prevented them from transmitting the virus.