There Is Still Hope For The HIV Vaccine says Doctors
There Is Still Hope For The HIV Vaccine says Doctors
SCINTISTS who worked on the Imbokodo HIV vaccine trials say all hope is not lost in terms of finding a long lasting HIV prevention method in the form of vaccine.
Speaking during a virtual Media Science Café on Imbokodo Trial Headlines, Dr Portia Hunidzarira the Principal Researcher they are still examining and looking at data from the HIV vaccine trials to see how best they can work around developing a vaccine that has a higher efficacy and protection profile.
Vaccine success stories are like this. It took 46 years to have a measles vaccine, 12 for influenza, 35 for yellow fever, 47 for Polio, 20 for pertussis, 93 for Influenzae-B.
“Unlike other viruses, human beings do not recover from HIV on their own, so no model of cure is available to learn from. When a person gets HIV, the virus immediately joins with the genetic material of the person infected with HIV. HIV can attack, hijack and evade the human defense system, in many different ways than other viruses. HIV is continuously changing (mutating) resulting in different strains,” she said.
Dr Hunidzarira added that they still find hope in that there was no one who got infected with HIV virus and no adverse reactions were recorded in participants, giving them hope that there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
Meanwhile, Dr William Kilembe, Site Principal Investigator Centre for Family Health Research in Zambia said the vaccine regimen was safe and tolerable as there were no adverse reactions in the participants.
“The vaccine did not provide enough protection against HIV and a decision was made to stop the stage 2 of the trial. Additional tests are still ongoing therefore we still have hope,” he said.