[procaare] AIDS vaccine may offer compromise

[ProCAARE <procaare@usa.healthnet.org>]

AIDS vaccine may offer compromise
- Reuters NewMedia -  May 8, 2002: Maggie Fox
********************

A vaccine that does not prevent HIV infection but helps the body control the AIDS virus
shows promise in monkeys and will soon be tested in humans, a researcher said on
Wednesday.

It is one of the first vaccines designed with a compromise in mind -- as none of the 30 or
so vaccines being tested looks like it can prevent infection, scientists are now aiming at
a vaccine that can at least dull the most lethal effects of HIV.

Virologist Harriet Robinson of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center at Atlanta's
Emory University said a vaccine she is working on did not prevent infection in monkeys,
but did stop them from getting sick.

"All the vaccinated animals became infected, but in contrast to non-vaccinated (animals),
the vaccinated animals controlled their infections to levels seen in humans who are
long-term non-progressors and non-transmitters," Robinson said in a telephone interview.
"I think we are going to be able to control HIV infection."

>From almost the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, doctors have noticed a small group of
patients who become infected with HIV but who never progress to AIDS, or take a very long
time to do so. Their immune systems seem naturally adept at controlling the virus.

These so-called long-term non-progressors offered hope that drugs or a vaccine might also
work to control infection. And in fact, cocktails of drugs called highly active
antiretroviral therapy, or HAART, do work, but they are expensive, have serious
side-effects and often one or more of the drugs eventually stop working as the virus
mutates inside the patient's body.They are out of reach to most of the people in the world
infected with HIV.

Robinson helped develop a vaccine that she says works as well as HAART, at least in
monkeys. Only humans can get AIDS, so medical researchers use an engineered virus called
simian-human immunodeficiency virus, or SHIV, to test on monkeys.

They first vaccinated the monkeys with an experimental vaccine using DNA from the virus --
three genes called gag, pol and env -- boosted with a vaccine made from a pox virus.
Seven months later, the monkeys were infected with SHIV rectally, which simulates
real-life sexual transmission of HIV in people. She said 19 of 20 animals who got the
three-gene vaccine were still controlling the virus well nearly two years later. The virus
was just barely detectable in their blood which, in humans, translates into having no
symptoms.

"Overall, they have continued control of infection and a decline in the level of
infection," said Robinson, who presented her findings in Baltimore to the National
Foundation for Infectious Diseases. "This could be as effective, if not more effective,
than HAART."

Robinson said her team is moving under the auspices of the U.S. National Institutes of
Health to start human trials later this year. The first tests will use healthy people at
low risk of HIV infection to see if the vaccine is safe.  More than 40 million people
worldwide are infected with HIV, which has no cure and has killed 25 million people.

 Source: [AEGiS] CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update: May 8, 2002: Maggie Fox

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