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AIDS Vaccine Is Partially Successful

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the not-sure-thirty-percent-is-gonna-cut-it dept.

ifchairscouldtalk writes "A Phase III 'RV 144' study in Thailand succeeded in reducing HIV infection rate in trial with 31.2% effectiveness. The study was conducted by the Thailand Ministry of Public Health and used strains of HIV common in Thailand. It is not clear whether the vaccine, which combines AIDSVAX with Aventis Pasteur ALVAC-HIV canarypox vector, known as 'vCP1521,' would work against other strains in the United States, Africa or elsewhere. Strangely, the vaccine had no effect on levels of HIV in the blood of those who did become infected, providing 'one of the most important and intriguing findings' of the trial, according to Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is one of the trial's sponsors."

2 of 317 comments (clear)

  1. Re:HIV Vaccine by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You seem to be reading a different article to the one posted on Slashdot. The one linked in the summary states that it is an HIV vaccine but it didn't affect the amount of HIV in the blood of those who were infected compared to the placebo. Those who were not infected had no HIV in their blood. This is interesting, because normally a vaccine that is partially effective like this will mean that the people who are infected will have less of the virus in their blood than people who are not vaccinated, but still enough to be infected. This one has an entirely binary success rate; it either makes no difference at all in a particular person, or it makes them immune to the relevant strains of HIV. This implies that there is some other factor at play, possibly something in the genetic makeup of the people who were not infected, which could lead to a universally effective vaccine being developed.

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    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  2. Once you've had AIDS by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The existing battery of drugs is enough to put HIV into remission. Your immune system will remain healthy and the virus particles will essentially disappear. But it's somewhere inside you; if you stop taking those drugs, it eventually comes back although you may have to wait.

    HIV has long been known to hide somewhere in the body after drugs have eliminated the actual virus particles. They found where recently; it integrates its sequence into the DNA of T-cells, and the promoter at the start of the viral sequence is capped by a repressor protein. Once it comes off its DNA binding site, viral proteins start getting transcribed again.

    They actually developed a drug that can kick it off there and make your AIDS come back again.