An experimental vaccine against HIV, the AIDS virus, which had previously been successfully tested on monkeys in 2015, has just shown encouraging results on men. Tested in 393 volunteers in five countries (United States, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa and Thailand), this vaccine elicited an immune response (the production of antibodies) in 100% of participants.
A two-step vaccine
This is a “double-trigger” vaccine, which acts in two stages. First of all, the immune system is prepared to face the AIDS virus thanks to another pathogen. Then, the immune system is boosted using a protein located on the envelope of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus responsible for AIDS. This two-step approach had already been used successfully in vaccines against the Ebola virus.
In the monkey trial, the vaccine produced an immune response in 6 of the 12 primates (ie a 50% effective response). The trial on healthy men showed an immune response in 100% of the participants, according to the study presented at the International AIDS Research Conference in Paris.
The next phase of testing, on participants at high risk of HIV infection, could begin “at the end of 2017 or at the beginning of 2018”, in countries in southern Africa, the Janssen laboratory (of the group Johnson and Johnson), who is developing this experimental vaccine.
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