A highly efficient vaccine would be a "game-changer", but results of the new trials will take years, scientists say.

South Africa has launched a major clinical trial of an experimental vaccine against the AIDS virus, which scientists hope could be the "final nail in the coffin" for the disease.

More than 30 years of efforts to develop an effective vaccine for HIV have not borne fruit, but for the first time since the virus was identified in 1983, scientists said on Wednesday they think they have found a promising candidate.

The new study, known as HVTN 702, will involve more than 5,400 sexually active men and women aged 18-35 in 15 areas around South Africa over four years.
It is one of the biggest clinical trials involving the disease ever undertaken and has revived hopes of a breakthrough in the battle against AIDS.


"If deployed alongside our current armoury of proven HIV prevention tools, a safe and effective vaccine could be the final nail in the coffin for HIV," said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is taking part in the study.

"Even a moderately effective vaccine would significantly decrease the burden of HIV disease over time in countries and populations with high rates of HIV infection, such as South Africa."

Condoms are at the frontline of efforts to prevent the spread of HIV, which is mainly transferred through the sexual fluids and blood of infected individuals.

Condoms everywhere'

"There are condoms everywhere in South Africa but people are just passing by as if there is nothing there," she told AFP news agency.

South Africa was not chosen by accident. The country has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world - 19.2 percent according to the UN AIDS agency - with more than seven million people living with the virus.

"A vaccine is critical for South Africa," said Glenda Gray, president of the country's Medical Research Council.

"Every day, 1,000 people are getting infected and most of them are young women and men so we need to find a solution."
A 35% reduction in new AIDS infections since 2000

The vaccine has been adapted for the HIV strain prevalent in southern Africa from one used in a trial of 16,000 people in Thailand in 2009, which reduced the risk of infection by more than 30 percent for three-and-a-half years after the first jab.

The safety of the vaccine has already been tested successfully over 18 months on 252 volunteers. The new study aims to test its effectiveness as a virus-killer.

Vaccines work by priming the body to respond with germ-fighting antibodies whenever a virus or bacteria invades. But the AIDS-causing virus is stealthy and quick to mutate to avoid being targeted.

"If we have a 50 percent efficacy rate, we would consider this an effective vaccine," said Gray.

From there, it could take five to 10 years to scale up production, "and we need money to take [it] to a world level", she added.

Even if the new vaccine proves effective, experts warn it is vital to remain vigilant in the fight against HIV.

"A highly efficient vaccine would be a game-changer but the results of these trials will take years," Lynn Morris, head of the HIV virology section at South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), told AFP.

"We must continue to use other HIV prevention tools to reduce the number of new HIV infections, particularly in vulnerable populations such as young women."

How Malawi reduced its HIV/Aids infection rate

According to UNAIDS, half of the 36 million or so people with HIV around the world have access to anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs), a figure that has doubled in five years.

Thanks to these treatments, which keep the virus in check and increase the lifespan of HIV-positive people without curing them, average life expectancy in South Africa has risen from 57.1 years to 62.9 since 2009.

"I know people who are HIV positive and I know people who died because of HIV - some of them are in my family," one trial participant who declined to give her name.

"I want to make a difference in my community and in my country... There's no cure yet, so we have to keep fighting."

A small number of people, mainly in developed countries, use virus-suppressing drugs as a preventive aid, although the exact level of protection this offers is not clear.

But relying on existing prevention methods was not working, said Mmapule Raborife, one of HIV Vaccine Trials Network's community advisors in the large township of Soshanguve, north of the administrative capital Pretoria.


http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/aids-vaccine-final-nail-coffin-disease-161130142549896.html

Good news

Until those who make big bucks out of HIV research funds come out to say the vaccine doesn't work.

delishpot:
Until those who make big bucks out of HIV research funds come out to say the vaccine doesn't work.

Its better we hope and pray. The success of the vaccine means that millions of lives could be saved in a few years

.....Time after Time.....

SMH.

kropotkin2:
Its better we hope and pray. The success of the vaccine means that millions of lives could be saved in a few years

Yes! We hope and pray it is pronounced successful then they bring out a new virus to monger fear and make billions in cash.

Some guys wont use CD again

delishpot:


Yes! We hope and pray it is pronounced successful then they bring out a new virus to monger fear and make billions in cash.

No we dont pray for that

afanide:
Some guys wont use CD again

I know you would like that

kropotkin2:
No we dont pray for that

We don't but those who grow rich out of it can't wait.

Honestly, this is great news but I'm afraid there's a big problem.....

The Major Pharmaceutical Giants making billions of dollars out of anti-retroviral (ARVs) drug sales will do everything possible to limit this effort.

Since 1983 or so, lots of research grants and funds for HIV have been granted, yet nothing. There's a hidden plot in this whole HIV/AIDs game.

I recall when Ulcer (aka Peptic Ulcer) was once considered a chronic condition one lived with for a lifetime and had to take ulcer drugs to manage it till death.

Booyyy! These ulcer drugs were expensive and the pharmaceutical industry boomed from ulcer drugs sales. But a certain doctor from Australia called Barry Marshall (specialised in Gastroenterology) assisted by his friend, Rick Warren (a pathologist) helped solve the ulcer msytery.

Before Barry and Rick, medical science said stress was Ulcer's main cause. But Barry was able to show that it was a bacterium called Helicobacter Pylori.
.......................
Here's a summary of what went down

This (H.pylori) was discovered after watching so many ulcer patients of his waste away and die.

He was fed up and wanted answers. He consulted his friend Rick and they started observing the tissues in the Gastrointestinal tract of patients that had ulcer with focus on the stomach (major gastric area) and intestinal areas.

Each time, they found a particular organism located near the site of the ulcer in patients. They eventually identified it as Helicobacter pylori and when they checked the medical texts, there was nothing linking the organism to ulcer.

Barry and Rick made more searches and always found this same organism in every ulcer patient.
Barry then started making theories and lectures about the possibility of ulcer being caused by an organism and NOT necessarily stress.

THE GIANT PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES AND SOME OF THE FINEST GASTROENTEROLOGISTS MADE MINECEMEAT OF HIM, saying stuffs like, "Barry, you dont know more than the textbooks written by great medical minds... Sit down!!! And stop your whinings!!!"

Barry faced lots of opposition to the extent that no one volunteered to test his theory. What he did??

HE USED HIMSELF FOR THE EXPERIMENT. He and Rick cultured the bacterium, H.Pylori and as foul smelling as it was, Barry ingested it and soon after he started exhibiting signs of ulcer like nausea, burning sensation and more....

He and Rick had already come up with a two-weeks antibiotics plan before Barry's crazy risk.

So Barry started himself on a two weeks full dose of antibiotics and that was it!!! Ulcer was cured.


He and Rick now again took their findings to various science symposiums, conferences and also published research papers. The experiment was replicated globally and BARRY AND RICK HAD BECOME THE NEW STARS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE FOR A DISCOVERY SO PROFOUND THAT HAVE GONE TO SAVE MILLIONS OF LIVES AND ALSO "BILLIONS OF CASH" even till this day.


By 1994, They were renowned and had defeated the opposition to their works and that "MONEY-PROFITING" ANGLE OF THE PHARMA WORLD DIED. Ulcer drugs were now obsolete...

For the records, Barry Marshall and Rick Warren won the Nobel Prize in medicine in 2005. And he's certainly one of my key role models in the world of medicine and science.

.......................



What am I trying to say? The efforts being staged in South Africa must have people "really" ready to make it work and must try to "tactically" repel the big pharma companies' and "big global" policy makers' plans to frustrate the effort so as to bring out a truly effective HIV Vaccine which can be the bedrock upon which a cure for HIV/AIDs can be found.


It certainly won't be easy as for years now, the research efforts as regards HIV/AIDs have been frustrated from a lot of angles. Even David Ho that was so close never got close anymore.

I pray they all learn a thing or two from Barry Marshall's dodgedness.