Scientists are cautiously optimistic about the HIV vaccine candidate



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By Jen Christensen, CNN

(CNN) – There may be a glimmer of hope in the fight to protect people from HIV-1, the most common type of virus and the one that causes the most diseases in the world

A new vaccine appears to be safe and induces an immune response in humans and rhesus monkeys in an early stage of the trial, according to a new study published Friday in the journal The Lancet.

This means that it is safe enough to go into the next test phase, which involves a greater number of humans. This is one of five experimental HIV-1 vaccine concepts that have reached the age of 35 years of the HIV pandemic.

With 1.8 million new cases of human immunodeficiency virus each year according to UN estimates and nearly 37 million people living with HIV worldwide, the research of a vaccine was urgent – and extremely difficult.

Scientists use these initial phases of clinical trials to determine the best dosage to use and to see if a vaccine is safe.

A new vaccine was tested in 393 healthy people considered at low risk of infection and 72 rhesus monkeys. Participants in the trial came from 12 clinics in South Africa, East Africa, Thailand and the United States.

In addition to being well tolerated by all subjects and inducing an immune response against HIV in humans, the vaccine against simian-human immunodeficiency virus infection in humans rhesus monkeys. It is not known if this would provide protection for humans.

Since this phase of the test was considered successful, the vaccine can be tested in a larger population of patients at higher risk of infection. This trial began in the fall and is ongoing in 2,600 women in sub-Saharan Africa

The researchers warn that the results of the early test do not mean a viable vaccine. The ability to induce specific immune responses to HIV does not necessarily mean that the vaccine will protect humans against HIV infection.

"I would say that we are satisfied with these data so far, but we need to interpret the data with caution." study co-authored Dr. Dan H. Barouch, a senior researcher on the study, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research. "We must recognize that the development of an HIV vaccine is an unprecedented challenge, and we will not know for sure whether this vaccine will protect humans."

Only four vaccine concepts were tested in humans, and only one proof of protection in an efficacy trial, but the effect was deemed too weak to make it usable.

The new vaccine has been shown to be protective in monkeys, and although antibodies against HIV have been generated in humans, it is unclear whether "this is a very interesting study but the search for an HIV vaccine is very difficult, "said Dr. Carlos del Rio, who did not participate in the study, but did research similar to that of the HIV vaccine. co-principal investigator of the Emory-CDC HIV Clinical Trials Unit. His unit is one of 37 clinical trial units responsible for implementing the scientific agenda of the National Institutes of Health's International HIV / AIDS Clinical Research Network

. " Despite all the progress we've seen, we need a critical vaccine, and this new vaccine, although there's a long way to go, it's good to see solid evidence to pbad at the next phase of testing. "

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