FRANCE: HIV vaccine "possible" says leading Professor in Paris.

Record ID: 402756

  • Title: FRANCE: HIV vaccine "possible" says leading Professor in Paris.
  • Date: 20th October 2009
  • Summary: PAYAO PROVINCE, THAILAND (FILE) (REUTERS) MEDICAL WORKER CHECKING A MAN VARIOUS OF PATIENT RECEIVING A MEDICINE
  • Embargoed: 4th November 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: International Relations,Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA59X6XY57BJIQRFYW4S0XFUNB7
  • Story Text: More than a thousand top scientists gather in Paris to discuss research of a vaccine against HIV/AIDS amid a new hope that a vaccine is just around the corner.
    Leading scientists gathered in Paris hope a vaccine against the virus causing AIDS will soon be found.
    Over 1000 scientists from around the world will discuss the latest developments in obtaining an HIV vaccine.
    The results of the largest ever clinical trial of an experimental vaccine last September 24 by Sanofi-Pasteur drugs company proved that a vaccine could provide some immunity to the HIV virus.
    "I think what we can say now is that it appears this is really the first time ever that there is any hint that we can confer some level of protection in humans with a vaccine. I think if that holds up in the coming week and months of analysis and further experimentation that is a very important result, that's a first and it really opens a door, it's a proof of concept that a vaccine in humans is possible" said Doctor Alan Bernstein, Executive Director of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise on Monday (October 19).
    Although not enough to launch a commercial vaccine, the Thai experiment showed that a third of the people who were vaccinated were protected.
    For Bernstein, the lessons from this latest experimental vaccine should lead to a better version of the vaccine,
    "Well I think that what needs to be done now is a lot of post-hoc work, post-hoc analysis of these biological samples of those volunteers and to start thinking about how to redesign the vaccine to make it batter, how do we go from, let's say, the thirty percent that was announced on the 24th of September to some higher number, so I think the objective now is to use science to go from the current number to a much more usable number. So I think there is an optimism in the field that is going to be possible but it is going to need science, it is going to need more clinical research" Bernstein said.
    Bernstein called also authorities in the field to continue funding research,
    "We are all working as quickly as possible to get a vaccine. All the thousand people who are here at the AIDS vaccine 2009 conference and the people who are still in the labs working at home. And so I think there is a sense of momentum and movement and what we need now is for governments and funders and industry to sustain that investment and to increase it so that we can get there as quickly as possible".
    The conference will come back in more detail on the results of the experiment in Thailand.
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