South Africa is the only country in the world where a large AIDS vaccine trial is being planned, as the global scientific community struggles to find a way to eradicate HIV.
Announced at this week's international AIDS Vaccine Conference in Barcelona, the South African trial will involve the only vaccine shown to have some effect on the virus when it was tested among 16,000 people in Thailand. Released in 2009, the Thai trial's results showed that HIV infection rates were 31 percent lower in participants who had received the vaccine than those who had not.
"On the eve of some of the most important vaccine trials, I am proud of the critical role that the people of South Africa will play," said Ntando Yalo from the Networking AIDS Community Of South Africa, speaking at conference opening.
But the trial's researchers are cautious.
Glenda Gray is the South African trial's lead researcher and executive director of the Perinatal HIV Research at the University of the Witwatersrand. She told conference delegates that trial would begin by testing the Thai vaccine on a small group of people to confirm the vaccine worked as well in South African populations as it did in Thai participants.
You may also like this: ABORTION KILL BABIES, HURT WOMEN
"It might not show the same efficacy as in Thailand," Gray said. "For example, South African women are bigger, and have different (levels of) exposure to the virus."
With a national HIV prevalence rate of about 17 percent, South Africans are likely to have had much more exposure to the HIV than people in Thailand, where just one percent of the population is HIV-positive. The modest protection offered by the Thai vaccine might be too weak for South Africa, Gray added.
If the vaccine is effective within this smaller group, researchers will modify it for use against the predominant strain of HIV found in South Africa. This modified vaccine would be tested on about 240 people and, if successful, move to a larger trial involving about 5,400 people.
Barcelona — South Africa is the only country in the world where a large AIDS vaccine trial is being planned, as the global scientific community struggles to find a way to eradicate HIV.
Announced at this week's international AIDS Vaccine Conference in Barcelona, the South African trial will involve the only vaccine shown to have some effect on the virus when it was tested among 16,000 people in Thailand. Released in 2009, the Thai trial's results showed that HIV infection rates were 31 percent lower in participants who had received the vaccine than those who had not.
"On the eve of some of the most important vaccine trials, I am proud of the critical role that the people of South Africa will play," said Ntando Yalo from the Networking AIDS Community Of South Africa, speaking at conference opening.
But the trial's researchers are cautious.
Glenda Gray is the South African trial's lead researcher and executive director of the Perinatal HIV Research at the University of the Witwatersrand. She told conference delegates that trial would begin by testing the Thai vaccine on a small group of people to confirm the vaccine worked as well in South African populations as it did in Thai participants.
"It might not show the same efficacy as in Thailand," Gray said. "For example, South African women are bigger, and have different (levels of) exposure to the virus."
With a national HIV prevalence rate of about 17 percent, South Africans are likely to have had much more exposure to the HIV than people in Thailand, where just one percent of the population is HIV-positive. The modest protection offered by the Thai vaccine might be too weak for South Africa, Gray added.
If the vaccine is effective within this smaller group, researchers will modify it for use against the predominant strain of HIV found in South Africa. This modified vaccine would be tested on about 240 people and, if successful, move to a larger trial involving about 5,400 people.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Use other Browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, etc. except Opera to make comment