Exuberant hope for an AIDS vaccine?

US AIDS researchers expects breakthrough in the development of an AIDS vaccine in the coming years

21/05/2013

Once again, the renowned AIDS researcher Carl Dieffenbach from the US Department of Health „National Institutes of Health“ on the occasion of the „HIV Vaccine Awareness Day“ In a video message on May 18, he reiterated his hope for a breakthrough in the development of an AIDS vaccine. Although his team has been working on a vaccine against HIV for years, no effective vaccine has yet been developed. However, recent news on HIV vaccine research achievements, such as that of a Spanish research team headed by Felipe Garcia of the University of Barcelona earlier this year, has raised new hopes.

Although AIDS is now relatively easy to treat with modern HIV medicines, millions of people worldwide still die every year from the immunodeficiency syndrome. Overall, the number of HIV infections globally is estimated at well over 30 million. The medical care of those affected is relatively poor, especially in the poorer African countries south of the Sahara, as well as in some Eastern European and Southeast Asian states. The infected people often have no access to the required remedies and many people still die today from AIDS. Carl Dieffenbach has in this context now opposite the information portal „blog.aids.gov“ pointed to what he sees as the promising possibilities of an AIDS vaccine and emphasized in his video message that research is currently underway „on the way to developing a safe, efficient vaccine against HIV“ located.

HIV vaccine no help for those affected
The media response to the expressed hope that the renowned AIDS researcher will soon be able to present an AIDS vaccine seems to be significantly overshadowed by the actual medical significance. Because here is presented by no means a cure for AIDS, but only an improved possibility of prevention, as also granted Dieffenbach. People who are already ill can no longer benefit from the vaccine. While it may be possible to reduce the number of new infections in the widespread use of an AIDS vaccine in the high-risk countries, the consequent use of condoms would have a comparable effect here. Those who take prevention seriously are already subject to a relatively low risk of infection today. Enlightenment is to be mentioned here as an essential means in the fight against HIV. Because many are unaware of the risks of infection and the consequences of the disease.

Promising research on AIDS vaccines?
Despite the doubts expressed by different sides of the meaningfulness of the development of an AIDS vaccine, the US AIDS researcher Carl Dieffenbach was full of energy and announced to the news agency „AFP“ new medical trials for the coming years, where „two clear research axes“ would be prosecuted. On the one hand, this was the further development of a vaccine that had caused an immunization rate of 31 percent in trials in Thailand in 2009, and now together with the experts of the pharmaceutical companies Sanofi Pasteur and the pharmaceutical company Novartis and with the support of the Bill & Melinda Foundation a vaccine that will be tested in South Africa from 2014 onwards. On the other hand, his hope for the early development of an AIDS vaccine based on the discovery of two strikingly effective antibodies in 2010. Should it succeed from this one „Sample vaccine“ could produce this „extinguish all circulating strains of the HI virus worldwide“, so Dieffenbach. Here, the research is currently focused on the extraction of certain immunogens, which can trigger a targeted immune response of the organism and in this way the formation of antibodies. (Fp)

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The difficult fight against AIDS