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A four-year clinical trial of an experimental Human Immunodeficiency Virus, HIV, vaccine is set to commence in South Africa in November, US health officials have announced.
The experimental vaccine being tested in based on a U.S. military vaccine called RV144 that protected 31 percent of volunteers in Thailand in 2009. It has now been tweaked there is hope it will work better in this trial. The trial will be carried out in 15 different sites in South Africa.
Currently, there's no cure for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, but cocktails of antiviral drugs can keep it under control — and if people take some of the same drugs they can protect themselves against infection.
That approach, called pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP can reduce the risk of catching HIV by 90 percent if people use it consistently. But it's not cheap, and studies suggest it could be difficult for people in developing countries to stick to, if they could even get the drugs.
"For the first time in seven years, the scientific community is embarking on a large-scale clinical trial of an HIV vaccine, the product of years of study and experimentation," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health and a co-funder of the trial.
NBC News
The experimental vaccine being tested in based on a U.S. military vaccine called RV144 that protected 31 percent of volunteers in Thailand in 2009. It has now been tweaked there is hope it will work better in this trial. The trial will be carried out in 15 different sites in South Africa.
Currently, there's no cure for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, but cocktails of antiviral drugs can keep it under control — and if people take some of the same drugs they can protect themselves against infection.
That approach, called pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP can reduce the risk of catching HIV by 90 percent if people use it consistently. But it's not cheap, and studies suggest it could be difficult for people in developing countries to stick to, if they could even get the drugs.
"For the first time in seven years, the scientific community is embarking on a large-scale clinical trial of an HIV vaccine, the product of years of study and experimentation," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health and a co-funder of the trial.
NBC News
