Imagine if HIV were one day about as minor and irrelevant as the common cold? Well, that day may be possible sooner than we think, as scientists at the National Biotech Centre in Madrid believe a new vaccine could reduce HIV to a “minor chronic infection.”
Researchers have been focusing on the MVA-B vaccine, where an incredible 90% of participants showed an immune response to the virus and 85% kept the immunity a year later. Compared to some of the best trials, those are amazingly promising percentages.
The success of the vaccine is based on the human immune system’s capability to learn how to react over time against virus particles and infected cells. “MVA‐B vaccine has proven to be as powerful as any other vaccine currently being studied, or even more,” says lead researcher Mariano Esteban.
Here’s how it works: MVA‐B is an attenuated virus, which has already eradicate smallpox in the past. The “B” stands for the HIV subtype it is meant to work against, which is the most common in Europe. Once injected, the vaccine teaches the volunteer’s immune system to track down and fight off the virus. “It is like showing a picture of the HIV so that it is able to recognize it if it sees it again in the future,” Esteban says.
Esteban added that “If this genetic cocktail passes Phase II and Phase III future clinic trials, and makes it into production, in the future HIV could be compared to herpes virus nowadays.”
<span>If indeed future trials of the vaccine continues to yield success, than THIS is incredible news! One of my closest cousins is HIV+ …though you'd never know it to look at him. He was diagnosed a little over 10 yrs ago. But he looks like the picture of health. And then one of my dearest friends revealed to me in Nov. of last year that she was diagnosed HIV+ several years ago. Like my cousin, you'd never know it to look at her. In both cases, the news hit me LIKE.A.ROCK. And in both cases, they delayed telling me FOR YEARS because they knew it would.</span>