HIV vaccination fails in final phase – Fauci reacts with disappointment

It’s another disappointment in an area long plagued with failures: The only current HIV vaccine that has entered late-stage clinical trials has proven ineffective, manufacturer Janssen Pharmaceuticals said.

The news was “disappointing,” said Anthony Fauci, who ran the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases until December, of the New York Times. But it doesn’t mean the end of efforts to develop a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine.

Four decades after the virus was discovered, an estimated 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV – and about 10 million of them have no access to treatment.

The virus still infects about 1.5 million people a year. And AIDS – due to infection with the HI virus – kills about 650,000 people every year, mainly in developing countries. Because there are effective drugs available in this country that can suppress the virus in infected people. However, these drugs must be taken for life and are often inaccessible to people in developing countries.

A vaccine would therefore be the ideal way to combat the virus there and to reach young patients in particular. But over the past few decades, dozens of HIV vaccines have been tested and rejected. However, Fauci confirmed to the New York Times that research in this area remains very active.

For example, an ongoing study called PrEPVacc is exploring a combination of experimental HIV vaccines and preventative drugs in East and South Africa, according to the New York Times. The researchers have already made progress in developing effective antibodies that can neutralize the virus.

The now rejected study is called “Mosaico” and started in 2019, writes Janssen Pharmaceuticals. The vaccine was given to 3,900 cis men and trans people who have sex with cis men and trans people. Tests were conducted at 50 locations in nine countries in North America, South America and Europe.

The vaccine should stimulate neutralizing antibodies against different subtypes of the global HI virus. But the immune responses were not as hoped.

After reviewing the data, an independent panel concluded that while the vaccine was safe, it did not prevent more HIV infection than a placebo, according to the New York Times. The panel advised the company to terminate the study.

“There aren’t many companies that are into infectious disease vaccines, so it’s a disappointment and a setback that this product isn’t coming to market,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of the global HIV prevention organization AVAC, of ​​​the New York Times. But he also believes that all hope is not lost.

(yum)