25th September 2009, 06:51 AM
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Member
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Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: china
Posts: 57
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Successful AIDS-Vaccine Trial Raises Hopes
An AIDS vaccine has been shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection in humans for the first time, a significant advance in a field of research that has long been stymied by failure.
The $105 million, six-year trial, which involved more than 16,000 people in Thailand — the largest AIDS-vaccine trial ever conducted — found that an experimental vaccine was 31% effective in preventing HIV infection. The volunteer group in the study was representative of the general Thai adult population, including low-risk, heterosexual adults. Calling the results of the trial a "significant scientific advance," officials at the World Health Organization said the results reinvigorated the stalled quest for a vaccine against AIDS, which is estimated to kill some 2 million people globally each year.
The vaccine, called RV144, combined two older vaccines that had each proved unsuccessful in previous tests: ALVAC, from Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccine division of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis; and AIDSVAX, originally developed by VaxGen Inc. and now held by the nonprofit Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.
The vaccine was administered in two stages. First the ALVAC vaccine, which uses a Frankenstein virus of canarypox and HIV, was used as a primer dose, then AIDSVAX was administered as a "booster" to improve the body's immune response to the first shot. Half of the trial's participants received the combination vaccine, while the other half received a placebo. In the final analysis, 74 of the 8,198 placebo recipients became infected with HIV, compared with 51 of 8,197 participants who received the vaccine regimen.
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