Another failure in attempts to find AIDS vaccine

Latest news about AIDS vaccine sounds quite frustrating and dark. It turned out that the most promising remedy is ineffective in treatment of deadly disease.

Photo: Another failure in attempts to find AIDS vaccine

The following information is based on a number of failed trials that proved the drug rather to increase risk of infection than protect from it.

The trials were conducted under supervision and financial support of the US National Institutes of Health that is going to discuss the results of the failed operations in the near future.

The AIDS vaccine was produced by the Merck & Co. and underwent two trials. One of the trials called STEP took place in the United States and comprised about 3,000 participants, the other called the Phambili trial was conducted in South Africa with only about 800 volunteers. The vaccine used the Adno-5 cold virus containing some DNA from HIV.

After the termination of vaccination, claimed unfertile and useless by a group of analysts, it was discovered that some of the participants showed higher susceptibility to infection after receiving the vaccine. The new task that lies in front of researchers is to find out the reasons of such “behavior”.

Reactions upon this conspicuous failure are diverse. On the one hand, it leaves everyone concerned frustrated and depressed, on the other hand, everyone should understand that AIDS isn’t just flu and requires much effort to fight against it, in addition the field of medicine and on the whole the scientific field can’t exist and bring results and discoveries without failures and setbacks.