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Promising Norwegian HIV vaccine Tested

Posted by Hemos on from the see-how-it-works dept.

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"

11 of 57 comments (clear)

  1. article text by witte · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  2. Interesting, but ... by MacEnvy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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  3. Thank god it's Norway by TripleA · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Thank god it's Norway by TripleA · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's a reference to Swedish minister Bjorn Rosengren on a business trip to Norway 1999-09-23 having said (roughly translated) "Norway really is the last Soviet state".

      And no, Norway has never been part of the Soviet Union.

  4. Vaccine by nycsubway · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    http://github.com/gbook/nidb
    1. Re:Vaccine by Alereon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The story is sparse on details, but it seems that it works to help prevent the onset of AIDS by allowing an individual to become partially immune to the immune-system-damaging effects of the HIV virus. Partially, since they still die eventually, but it helps. If, instead of a drug that acts on the virus itself, it stimulates an immune response, it would be classified as a vaccine, methinks.

    2. Re:Vaccine by KnightNavro · · Score: 2, Informative

      It seems that finding an image of the HIV virus wasn't all that difficult.

  5. Wording by cam_macleod · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not to troll or complain, but isn't that technically a treatment, not a vaccine? Correct me if I'm wrong...

    1. Re:Wording by 73939133 · · Score: 4, Informative

      A vaccine is something that stimulates the immune system with antigens. Most vaccines are preventive, but this one happens to be a therapeutic vaccine--you give it after the disease has already started. There are a few other examples of therapeutic vaccines.

    2. Re:Wording by mattlary · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A vaccine is not something that stimulates the immune system with antigens, but rather an administration of pathogens which enable the immune system to deal with the illness. I invite you to look at the definition as defined at Dictionary.com.

      A true HIV vaccine would be given to individuals so that if they were to be exposed to HIV, their bodies would be able to fight off the virus.

  6. Bill Gates saving the world by Jouni · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'm surprised this hasn't already been pointed out, but Bionor Immuno is a "partially GAVI/Norweigian Research Council funded project" and GAVI is largely launched with the $750M grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

    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

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    Jouni Mannonen | Game Designer, Consultant