Slashdot Mirror
Promising Norwegian HIV vaccine Tested
mkeke writes "The Norway Post is reporting: "A new Norwegian vaccine against HIV has attracted interest abroad, and is now being tested on 40 Norwegian HIV patients. The vaccine apparently helps to repair the patients' immune system, thus preventing the development of aids."
You can read it all here"
You can read it all here"
aw, what the heck, i've got too much karma:
:)
"Promising Norwegian HIV vaccine" - GNAA must be really excited
Promising Norwegian HIV vaccine tested
A new Norwegian vaccine against HIV has attracted interest abroad, and is now being tested on 40 Norwegian HIV patients.
-What we have seen so far, is that around 90 per cent of the patients have developed a new type of immunity which they did not have before joining the test project, says head of the project, Dag Kvale, Medical Director of the Ullevaal University Hospital in Oslo to TV2.
The vaccine, which has been developed by the Skien based company Bionor Immuno, apparently helps to repair the patients' immune system, thus preventing the development of aids, TV2 reports.
The patients will not be cured, but the new vaccine will possibly enable them to live with the virus without becoming sick with aids.
In September, representatives from the US National Health Institute will arrive in Norway to discuss the possibility for testing the vaccine on several thousand US HIV patients.
All the vaccine seems to do is allow people to continue to live with HIV for a longer time, without reaching full-blown AIDS. It's a nice step, but doesn't help with the main problem - that a significant portion of HIV cases are caused by ignorance and misbelief, especially in Africa. Furthermore, the places in Africa most hardly hit by HIV don't have enough money to buy cutting-edge treatments in the first place. They are too worried about food ...
It's too bad the details are so scarce in the article. It would be nice to know exactly what this vaccine does (enhance T-cells, etc?). For the moment, this news isn't very helpful to the majority of HIV sufferers. I suppose any progress is progress, though.
***
and not some ultra-capitalist western cowboy-regime driven company who has come up with the vaccine. Thank's to the last part of Soviet, this vaccine may come to use even for the ones who need it the most (poor African and Asian countries) and not only the people who can afford it.
Interesting use of the word vaccine. It seems that it actually helps stop the development of aquired immunodeficiency syndrome, but AIDS is not a virus.
HIV is the virus, but the 'vaccine' does not prevent HIV infection, it helps stop the effects of the HIV. I think they mean it's a vaccine in the sense that it can prevent AIDS.
An HIV infected person will still have HIV and can still transmit it to other people, even if they have had this vaccine.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Not to troll or complain, but isn't that technically a treatment, not a vaccine? Correct me if I'm wrong...
I am not to worried about what they call it. I am curious as to what the results are. Hopefully it's another big step forward to a cure!
--Matt Fisher
Though the results are promising, it's important to be careful extrapolating out to larger populations. 90% of 40 people is "significant", but it still a small sample size. Small effects can skew the results pretty badly.
It's nice to see AIDS vaccines working out, though. It's our best hope in the fight against the disease.
It's really amazing how AIDS drugs have progresses.
It used to be that the doctors just pumped you full of antibiotics to keep infections away, then they created drugs to repress the virus, and now we can actuall repair the immune system.
This is a great example of how research and developement (or even the scientific method) needs to work. It may seem like things are progressing slowly, but compared to (say) the fight against malaria, thing are progressing much more rapidly.
OK...
I can do this. I am, after all,
a superhero!
Better defs:
A friend is someone who will help you move.
A good friend is someone who will help you move a body.
AIDS tamed with a helping hand form Bill? Stranger things could happen. I just can't imagine what they are. :-)
I applaud the research and accomplishments of the project!
Jouni
Jouni Mannonen | Game Designer, Consultant
I think it is worth stating that the ultra-capitalist western cowboy-regime driven country that hosts these ultra-capitalist western cowboy-regime driven companies is the one thay ends up paying the majority of R&D costs for these drugs. Reguardless of who develops the drug, the price in the US can be 5 to 10 times as expensive as other countries. Just food for thought.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
I cannot find any references with details of this vaccine. Based on the Norway Post, it is impossible to see if this is significant. Does anyone have more information? Is there a patent application, for instance?
How hard did you search? I've even seen images of HIV virii in my HS textbooks over 5 years ago....
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
The 90% may seem like the treatment is a huge success. However, 40 patients is a very small sample size. It is exciting to hear that NIH will explore the possibility of a much larger trial. Several thousands of patients will provide more meaningful results.
think about it
lets say you have AIDS
are you a person who caught AIDS because of blood transfusions, operations, a cop who got bit by some infected addict, or are you someone who caught it from casual sex?
if the latter, are you going to be very careful with using condoms etc. (are you even going to TELL your partners/potential victims you have HIV? I mean, hey, you look healthy, and are they going to say "yes" to sex with you (even with a condom) when you've told them you have HIV? In which case, are you going to pass up on the chance to fuck them?)?
What if these victims don't have the resources to afford this same treatment that keeps you around as a disease vector?
A bit of sleuthing came up with more details on the study. It was tested only on HIV patients, but it seemed to stimulate immune response, so perhaps it could be useful for those in high-risk groums who are not yet infected:
Name of project
IMMUNOTHERAPY OF HIV-INFECTED PATIENTS (CTN B-HIV-1/99)
Short name of project:
HIV Immunotherapy
Relevant keywords describing the project:
Immunisation, therapeutic vaccine, Phase I study, HIV, p24, peptides
Principal investigator
Name: Nina Langeland
Title/Position: Prof. Dr.med.
Telephone (work): +47 55 97 29 61
Fax number (work): +47 55 97 49 79
E-mail: nina.langeland@haukeland.no
Principal institution
Name: Haukeland University Hopital
Street name: Haukeland sykehus
P.O.Box:
Postal code: NO-5021
City: Bergen
Country: Norway
Project duration
Start of project period January , 2000
End of project period December , 2000
Names and institution of participating senior scientists
Dr. med. Nina Langeland (Haukeland Hospital), Dr. med. Birgitta Aasjoe (Haukeland Hospital), Dr. med. Vidar Lehmann (Haukeland Hospital)
Dr. Ingebjoerg Baksaas (Mericon AS), Dr. Knut Dahl (Mericon AS)
Birger Soerensen (Bionor AS), Dr. Jorgen Nyhus (Bionor AS)
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Main sponsors
Bionor AS, P.O.Box 1868 Gulset, NO-3703 SKIEN, Norway
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Brief project description ( background, aims and results so far )
Background A clinical trial was conducted and completed at Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway during 2000-2001. The study was approved by the Norwegian Medicines Control Authority and by the Ethics Committee of Health Region III in Norway. Study design The study was an open, single centre, phase I, uncontrolled study. 11 patients were enrolled. All had been HIV positive for several years. Nine patients were on HAART treatment, two patients received no specific HIV treatment. Primary Objectives The primary objective of the study was to determine safety and toxicity of immunisation with the Vacc-4x peptide mixture based on blood tests and adverse events reporting. Secondary Objectives The secondary objectives were to monitor immune response in terms of delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) skin reaction, CD4 and CD8 cell counts, viral load, T-cell responses to individual synthetic p24 peptides and native analogues, and antibody responses to individual peptides and recombinant p24. Safety results No signs of toxicity and no clinically important adverse events following the Vacc-4x immunisation were observed. The adverse reactions reported were all of mild to moderate severity. No patients withdrew due to treatment-related adverse events or toxicological reactions. Painful injection was the most frequently reported adverse event, reported by 64% of the patients. Fatigue/vertigo or influenza-like symptom was reported after immunisation by 5 patients (45%). The results indicated that the therapeutic vaccine is safe and was well tolerated by all 11 enrolled patients. Immunological responses A positive DTH was measured for all patients indicating an activation of Th1 cells. An early and sustained increase in CD4 count for some patients on HAART was observed. The ELISPOT responses to synthetic and native peptides indicate production of new and virus specific CTLs that show cross reactivity back to native HIV proteins. No change observed in antibody production indicates that only cellular immunity has been activated, as expected.