USA: Trial for an HIV/AIDS vaccine could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against the disease

Record ID: 402750

  • Title: USA: Trial for an HIV/AIDS vaccine could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against the disease
  • Date: 3rd December 2006
  • Summary: (L!2) NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 30, 2006) (REUTERS) TRAFFIC IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CHELSEA PEOPLE WALKING ON THE SIDEWALK
  • Embargoed: 18th December 2006 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVAF41AFSN77Y04YG8DWPU1UFQ72
  • Story Text: There is no vaccine against AIDS and none of the dozens of vaccines being tested is likely to completely protect people from the deadly virus, but the future looks bright for AIDS vaccine development.
    High risk males and females at three research sites in New York are undergoing trials involving a vaccine as well as a placebo. The scientists from Project Achieve are trying to discover whether the vaccines are creating the immune response required to prevent HIV and AIDS infection.
    "The one vaccine that we're testing right now is based on taking a harmless virus and putting some of the parts of an HIV gene in and that, is, acts as a carrier and it carries the parts into the body and what we're hoping is then peoples' immune systems respond to it," said Project Achieve's Beryl Koblin.
    Even though trial participants receiving the vaccine read positive if tested for HIV because the vaccine contains an HIV gene, the vaccine cannot infect them with the virus. The vaccine and placebo is combined with extensive safe sex counselling and participants are warned that they are not immune to contracting HIV.
    Bill Nolan is one of the New York trial participants and he believes that the research will eventually reap rewards.
    "If I get the vaccine and it protects me, it's great. If I don't, if it's a placebo, it's good as long as the overall goal of getting the vaccine out there is huge," he said.
    The HIV virus behaves a lot like the influenza virus, mutating rapidly and it is difficult to vaccinate against because it infects the very immune system cells that are usually stimulated by a vaccine.
    Pharmaceutical companies, who make millions of dollars from AIDS treatment drugs, have been accused of not doing enough to develop a vaccine, but scientists say that this research, like research into cancer cures, takes time.
    Some New Yorkers agree. Jan Potocki told Reuters, "I know a lot of money has been put in that by very wealthy people it has got a lot of media attention, but how long it will take it seems like finding the cure for cancer. It's necessary, but you know, maybe in our lifetime, who knows?"
    "They should work till they get the vaccine, that's all. Who am I? I'm not a scientist to say it's been too long or not long, you know," added Blair Seagram.
    The AIDS virus infects more than 39 million people globally, more than 60 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa. It kills more than 4 million people every year and has killed 25 million people since it was identified in the 1980s.
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