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Merck's Vaccine Trial Halt Made Experts to Focus on Other HIV Prevention Tactics
November 03, 2007 at 4:37 PM
AIDS/HIV News
Merck in September announced that it had ended its Phase II trial, which began in late 2004 and involved 3,000 HIV-negative volunteers, after its experimental vaccine failed to prevent HIV infection in participants or prove effective in delaying the progression of the virus to AIDS. The trial was stopped by the Data and Safety Monitoring Board, an independent overseer. Some researchers have theorized that because HIV-positive people who have stronger CD4+ T-cell responses tend to fight the virus better, a vaccine that simulated a T-cell response might be able to control HIV/AIDS. The Merck vaccine was made from a weakened version of a common cold virus that served as a mode for providing three synthetically produced genes from HIV, known as gag, pol and nef.
According to the Post, there are "few promising vaccine candidates," and "pressure is building" from some experts to focus on other prevention strategies, such as male circumcision, promoting sexual monogamy and providing contraception to HIV-positive women. The "science behind several existing but lower-tech approaches has grown stronger" as efforts to develop a vaccine for HIV have "faltered," the Post reports. Male circumcision provides some level of "lifelong protection," and a reduction in the number of people who have multiple sex partners led to declines in HIV cases in Kenya and Uganda, the Post reports. Access to contraception also can prevent HIV-positive women from conceiving and giving birth to infants who might contract the virus. Although antiretroviral drugs can prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, the drugs are available to only one in 10 African women who need them, according to the Post.
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