AIDS Healthcare Foundation Reports: Poor AIDS Vaccine Clinical Trial Results Call for Reassessment of Overall Vaccine Development Strategies.News Editors/Health/Medical Writers LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 24, 2003 3.8% Efficacy Falls Far Short of VaxGen's Hoped for 30% Target Rate: Vaccine Did Show Some Promise Among Blacks & Asians, Suggesting Further Research Needed Just three weeks after President Bush's groundbreaking State of the Union commitment to prevent seven million new HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. infections in Africa and the developing world and treat two million people with AIDS The People With AIDS (PWA) Self-Empowerment Movement was a movement of those diagnosed with AIDS and grew out of San Francisco. The PWA Self-Empowerment Movement believes that those diagnosed as having AIDS should "take charge of their own life, illness, and care, and to minimize in poor countries with life-saving anti-retroviral therapy (ARV ARV abbr. Bible American Revised Version ARV n abbr (= American Revised Version) → traducción americana de la Biblia ARV n abbr (= ), California's VaxGen Corporation today released results of a three year clinical trial of its AIDSVax(R) AIDS vaccine AIDS vaccine A hypothetical vaccine intended to either prevent HIV infection or ensure that those infected will not fall victim to AIDS; the most promising vaccine is that using a naked DNA plasmid, reported by Letwin et al in 20/10/00 Science; as of early 2001, . According to AIDS Healthcare Foundation The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is a non profit, Los Angeles-based AIDS treatment and advocacy center. Their official founding pledge is to "provide cutting-edge medicine and advocacy, regardless of ability to pay. (AHF AHF antihemophilic factor (coagulation factor VIII). AHF abbr. antihemophilic factor AHF, n the abbreviation for antihemophilic factor. See also factor VIII. ), the trial, involving over 5,400 individuals, showed a disappointing overall HIV prevention rate of 3.8%. Among the nearly 500 Blacks and Asians who participated in the study, the vaccine's efficacy rate was 66%, a rate that the AHF considers statistically doubtful. "While the results among the small number of Black and Asian participants in the study are perhaps encouraging and could prove beneficial in our understanding of the how the virus works among different populations and ethnic groups, the disappointing overall results, a mere 3.8% vaccine efficacy rate -- far lower than VaxGen's targeted 30% rate -- require that we reassess our strategy of vaccine development," said Michael Weinstein, AIDS Healthcare Foundation president. "Clearly work should continue where the trial showed promise, but the general results suggest that 20 years into this pandemic pandemic /pan·dem·ic/ (pan-dem´ik) 1. a widespread epidemic of a disease. 2. widely epidemic. pan·dem·ic adj. Epidemic over a wide geographic area. n. we really need to stop and take a hard look at this issue." "To me, it looks now very unlikely we will ever have a protective vaccine against HIV," said Charles Farthing, M.D., AIDS Healthcare Foundation's Chief of Medicine. "Even the live attenuated vaccines which looked the most hopeful, and are halted in development because of safety concerns, may not be protective when one considers recent reports of people with HIV getting super-infected with a second strain and individuals getting infected despite a good specific CD8 cell mediated T cell immune response against the very strain they eventually got infected with. I now feel strongly that more resources should be put into providing anti-retroviral therapy -- which we know works and works well -- for people in resource-poor settings than into vaccine research." AIDS Healthcare Foundation is the U.S.'s largest specialized provider of HIV/AIDS HIV/AIDS Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome medical care. AHF serves thousands of patients in California, New York and Florida regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. In addition, AHF currently operates two free AIDS treatment clinics in Africa: the Ithembalabantu (Zulu for "people's hope") Clinic in KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa & the Uganda Cares Healthcare Center in Masaka, Uganda. www.aidshealth.org. |
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