Great news - Vaccine cuts HIV risk by one-third

[malaise]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26121832-23289,00.html
<snip>
CIENTISTS have for the first time succeeded in protecting people from HIV infection by means of a vaccine, a development that has stunned researchers worldwide and transformed prospects for combating the deadly virus.

The experimental vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by 31 per cent, according to results released from the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand.

Although the degree of protection is substantially less than would normally be considered enough to warrant rolling out a vaccine, the result has enthused researchers still demoralised over a succession of recent calamitous failures.

One trial of a previous vaccine even appeared to make people who were inoculated with it more, rather than less, likely to become infected with HIV, a result that dumbfounded experts and left some questioning whether an HIV vaccine would ever be possible.

Announcing the latest results yesterday, Colonel Jerome Kim, who helped lead the study for the US Army, said it was "the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine".

The trial of the vaccine -- in fact, a combination of two earlier test vaccines that had each failed to protect patients when tested separately in earlier trials -- was sponsored by the US Army and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute's director, Anthony Fauci, warned that this was "not the end of the road", but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.

"It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Dr Fauci said.

[BadgerKid]

1. The statistical significance is doubtful. n/t

[kestrel91316]

2. DU anti-vaccine contingent to scream that the vaccine kills in 3....2....1....