It Just Keeps Coming

Thursday, August 31st 2006
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First from China, now from Sweden comes news carried by the mainstream press on success towards an HIV vaccine.

Researchers at the Karolinska Institute and the Swedish Institute for Infectious Diseases Control have completed a first round of tests of a new AIDS vaccine in healthy human volunteers and are thrilled with the results. The vaccine is made from selected bits of the genetic code of HIV, more than enough to make it unmistakably recognizable to the body, but far less than an entire killed or weakened virus, which could, in theory, cause the disease it’s supposed to prevent. A fourth dose, made of another bit of HIV DNA piggybacking on a cowpox virus, was added as a booster. This aggressive approach yielded impressive results: Fully 90% of the subjects developed an immune response to the virus, meaning antibodies were produced which, if they rose to the right levels, could protect the body from a live virus should it ever come along.

At the least, such diverse sources and seperate promising news on the possibility of a vaccine is incredibly good news.