Home RSS

Vaccine could reduce HIV to 'minor infection'

Stephen Adams Telegraph 09/28/2011 13:16
Vaccine could reduce HIV to 'minor infection' - AIDS - health


HIV could be reduced to a "minor chronic infection" akin to herpes, scientists developing a new vaccine have claimed.



Spanish researchers found that 22 of 24 healthy people (92 per cent) developed an immune response to HIV after being given their MVA-B vaccine.

Professor Mariano Esteban, head researcher on the project at the National Biotech Centre in Madrid, said of the jab: "It is like showing a picture of the HIV so that it is able to recognise it if it sees it again in the future."

The injection contains four HIV genes which stimulate T and B lymphocytes, which are types of white blood cells.

Prof Esteban explained: "Our body is full of lymphocytes, each of them programmed to fight against a different pathogen.

"Training is needed when it involves a pathogen, like the HIV one, which cannot be naturally defeated".



Source