“We have just passed a crucial stage,” announces the immunologist Yves Lévy, director of the Vaccine Research Institute, in the parisian this Tuesday, about ongoing trials of a preventive HIV vaccine. After eight years of testing, “we passed phase 1-2,” she said.
The immunologist explains that 72 volunteers “without risk” were injected with three doses of the experimental vaccine, in France and Switzerland, and the one-year follow-up “shows that our vaccine is well tolerated and that it induces an immune response.” ” against HIV. Therefore, scientists are ready to move to phase III.
At this stage, “the trials make it possible to measure the efficacy of the vaccine, that is, its impact on the appearance of infections. These trials are carried out in the so-called risk populations,” explains the Vaccine Research Institute.
What is special about this vaccine?
This vaccine candidate “is based on the injection of monoclonal antibodies that specifically target key cells of the immune response, dendritic cells,” Inserm explained in February 2021, stressing that “this is the first time that a vaccine targets directly to these cells.
“Our injection sends the information directly to them thanks to a kind of missile, an antibody that targets a receptor on the surface of these cells, to which we have attached virus fragments,” says Yves Lévy.
The results obtained so far show that the body has an immune response to this HIV vaccine, but it is currently not clear whether the body will be sufficiently protected against a real infection. That is why “we need a third phase of testing among populations at risk” of being infected by HIV, says the immunologist.
According to him, the results of phase III will not arrive before two or three years, and could very well be negative, even after ten years of research.
A difficult virus to fight
Several trials are underway to try to find a vaccine that can prevent getting HIV or effectively fight infection in the event of contamination, such as the flu.
However, the HIV virus is particularly complex, in particular because it mutates so rapidly, but also because it attacks the immune system and “integrates into the genome, persists in infected people and is not eliminated by the natural response of the immune system”, explains the Site of sidation.
On the rise again in 2021, HIV testing has yet to catch up with the Covid-related backlog, a “missed opportunity” for some patients, Public Health France noted, two days before World AIDS Day on Thursday.
In 2021, “5,000 people discovered their HIV seropositivity,” a number “without a significant increase compared to 2020,” SPF writes.
Source: BFM TV
