CHICAGO/LONDON, (Reuters) – An experimental vaccine helped monkeys with a form of the AIDS virus control the infection for more than a year, suggesting it may lead to a vaccine for people, U.S. researchers said yesterday.
They said the vaccine works by priming the immune system to quickly attack the HIV virus when it first enters the body, a point at which the virus is most vulnerable.
Dr. Louis Picker of the Oregon National Primate Research Center, whose study appear in the journal Nature, said he thinks it will be possible to have a vaccine ready to test in people within three years.
Tests of the vaccine with a primate version of the virus called simian immunodeficiency virus showed more than half were able to keep the virus from replicating so that even the most sensitive tests could not detect any traces of the virus.
So far, the vast majority of the vaccinated monkeys have maintained control over the virus for more than a year, gradually losing any signs that they had ever been infected.
Macaques in the unvaccinated group have since developed the monkey form of AIDS.
“We feel it has a possibility of keeping the virus under complete control or clearing the virus,” Picker said.
