Aids vaccine 'may be ready within five years'

[ClubMed]

Article at Guardian Unlimited

An American pharmaceuticals company today claimed to be in the final stages of testing an Aids vaccine, possibly providing a working vaccine within five years.

Also at BBC News

How do you "test" an AIDS vaccine? The only sure way is to give someone the vaccine, then inject them with HIV (the AIDS virus), then sit back and see what happens.

I doubt there will be many volunteers forthcoming for that kind of testing, so my suggestion would be to try to stay out of prison during the next five years.

The kind of "testing" reported in the article will be safety and side-effect stuff, with some of the "volunteers" being those at risk of HIV exposure due to lifesyle choices and such.

This is not one of the trial vaccines using live viruses to stimulate antibody production, some of those have the potential to cause other unwanted problems, like mutant viral diseases. But this one relies upon HIV remaining recepitive to a specific protein, and there have been suggestions the virus will be able to mutate quite quickly to counter this approach. Retrovirus vaccine development is not yet a well established field, so I for one would not invest in this company, just in case.

Interesting.

Cheers
Mick

[Warthog]

Yay so after this all we need are a few vaccines to some STD's and we can go back to having unobtrusive sex again.

[lost-and-found]

and by the time they get the AIDS vaccine, there will probably be a newer illness that's as bad, if not worse, than aids

[MikeHof]

Wasn't there a prominent AIDS researcher a year or so ago that volulnteered himself to be injected w/ the AIDS virus to test a vaccine? Whatever became of him?


Mike

[Vanguarde]

I would be very impressed if there is ever a HIV/AIDS vaccine. Since the virus is human made, it is very very tricky. I have done some research on aids and hiv and it truly is brilliant - attack the attackers who are designed to attack you.

[ClubMed]

How do you "test" an AIDS vaccine? The only sure way is to give someone the vaccine, then inject them with HIV (the AIDS virus), then sit back and see what happens.

What about testing it on apes? Would that work?.

and by the time they get the AIDS vaccine, there will probably be a newer illness that's as bad, if not worse, than aids

There is already, the Ebola virus is waiting in line to break out one day.

Their website said they have already tested on monkeys. But the viruses that infect monkeys and those that infect humans are genetically different, and just because it protects monkeys using this technique does not mean it will protect us. Apes are less genetically similar to humans than some species of monkeys, so I doubt ape testing would help much more.

Ebola would need some really nice messy blood sharing to break out big time; either that, or an animal vector that spreads it by biting or by being eaten (or the raw carcass handled, like sheep and Q Fever). Ebola is most efficiently spread by direct blood to blood contact, and is very inefficiently spread by any other means, despite the "space suits" you might have seen worn by Western healthcare workers on the news. Lassa Viral Haemorrhagic Fever is more infectious than Ebola, but with a slightly lower death rate. We've had a couple of small outbreaks of Lassa Fever in England and Europe started by cases from Africa, where nurses and doctors died. Haven't had an outbreak of Ebola outside Africa that I can recall. There was an isolated outbreak from Marburg virus in Europe in 1967 though, due to sick monkeys. See http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/spb/m...spages/vhf.htm for more info on alll the viral haemorrhagic fevers. A most fascinating subject.

I doubt Ebola, unless spread somehow by terrorism (which would be extremely difficult), will ever be a major epidemic worldwide like HIV.

Smallpox on the other hand is just waiting for a comeback, IMO. Panic will be the biggest killer if it re-emerges. More so than anthrax.

Cheers
Mick (the gruesome )

[radio1_mike]

Growing viruses for bioterror is extremely difficult. Much more difficult than growing bacteria.

With Ebola in mind, terrorists would probably be more successful, getting and distributing comtaminated bloods/fluids from victims to cause localized outbreaks. Ebola would not be a good model, because you need:

1) Ebola
2) BL4 Lab
3) Trained personnel
4) Cell media

Ebola acts so quickly and so violently, that it would be immediately recognized. And hopefully contained.

That's why anthrax is the weapon of choice:

1) Fairly easy to "make"
2) Not immediately recognizable. Symptoms are flu-like, until patient is near death.

[ClubMed]

Ok people, this is not about bioterror, this is about a possible vaccine for AIDS, please stay on topic