Wow Legs

It seems that scientists are on the way to developing a successful HIV vaccine. It's not 100 percent successful yet but it looks as if it's going to that direction. 16,000 persons in Thailand volunteered to be part of a trial of the new HIV or AIDS vaccine which is known as known as RV 144. A significant minority of the volunteers were protected by the vaccine from being infected with HIV. The scientists are happy with the results of the trial but were also quite confused.The vaccine — a combination of two genetically engineered vaccines, neither of which had worked before in humans — protected too few people to be declared an unqualified success. The scientists do not really know why the vaccine worked. If they figure it out it is possible to finally make a vaccine that would defeat HIV.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said:

“For more than 20 years now, vaccine trials have essentially been failures, now it’s like we were groping down an unlit path, and a door has been opened. We can start asking some very important questions.”

Here's part of the report about the new HIV vaccine from The New York Times:

Results of the trial of the vaccine, known as RV 144, were released at 2 a.m. Eastern time Thursday in Thailand by the partners that ran the trial, by far the largest of an AIDS vaccine: the United States Army, the Thai Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Fauci’s institute, and the patent-holders in the two parts of the vaccine, Sanofi-Pasteur and Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.

Col. Jerome H. Kim, a physician who is manager of the army’s H.I.V. vaccine program, said half the 16,402 volunteers were given six doses of two vaccines in 2006 and half were given placebos. They then got regular tests for the AIDS virus for three years. Of those who got placebos, 74 became infected, while only 51 of those who got the vaccines did.

Although the difference was small, Dr. Kim said it was statistically significant and meant the vaccine was 31.2 percent effective.