New vaccine 'cuts Aids risk by 31%'

12 April 2012

An experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the Aids virus for the first time, a breakthrough in the fight against the deadly illness.

The World Health Organisation and the UN agency UNAids said the results "instilled new hope" in the field of HIV vaccine research.

The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31% in the world's largest Aids trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand.

Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine", said colonel Jerome Kim who helped lead the study for the US Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute's director, Dr Anthony Fauci, warned that this was "not the end of the road", but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome, adding: "It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective Aids vaccine.

The Thailand Ministry of Public Health conducted the study, which used strains of HIV common in Thailand. Whether such a vaccine would work against other strains in the US, Africa or elsewhere in the world is unknown, scientists stressed.

But even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact on the disease, as every day, 7,500 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; two million died of Aids in 2007.

Robin Shattock, professor of cellular and molecular infection at St George's, University of London, said: "This trial is very promising as it is the first to show a positive effect. It is early days and we need to see if the results are statistically significant.

"But it does gives researchers a real boost at a time when some were questioning whether a vaccine would ever be possible.

"Although it is very early to say exactly what this means for the future, it does offer hope."

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