AIDS vaccine passes early test

Drug triggers immune response, shields infections

PARIS, July 7, (AFP): The near 40year quest for an AIDS vaccine received a hopeful boost Saturday when scientists announced that a trial drug triggered an immune response in humans and shielded monkeys from infection.

Shown to be safe in humans, the candidate vaccine has now advanced to the next phase of the pre-approval trial process, and will be tested in 2,600 women in southern Africa to see whether it prevents HIV infection.

While the results so far have been encouraging, the research team and outside experts warn there are no guarantees it will actually work in the next trial phase dubbed HVTN705 or “Imbokodo” — the isiZulu word for “rock”. “Although these data are promising, we need to remain cautious,” study leader Dan Barouch, a Harvard Medical School professor, told AFP.

Just because it protected two-thirds of monkeys in a lab trial doesn’t mean the drug will protect humans, “and thus we need to await the results of the ... study before we know whether or not this vaccine will protect humans against HIV infection,” he said.

The results of the Imbokodo trial are expected in 2021/22.

“This is only the fifth HIV vaccine concept that will be tested for efficacy in humans in the 35+ year history of the global HIV epidemic,” added Barouch.

Only one so far, RV144, yielded some protection. RV144 was reported in 2009 to reduce the risk of HIV infection among 16,000 Thai volunteers by 31.2 percent — deemed insufficient

The finding was a reminder of the vast terrain — from the Pacific coast to the high Andes — that the Incan Empire, using a network of roads and a labor-based tax system, controlled before the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

Tucume, some 400 miles north of the Peruvian capital, Lima, is believed to have been first settled by the Lambayeque coastal people at the turn of the 12th century before being occupied by the Chimu culture and later the Incan Empire some for the drug to be pursued.

For the latest study, published in The Lancet medical journal, Barouch and a team tested the candidate drug on 393 healthy, HIV-free adults aged 18 to 50 in east Africa, South Africa, Thailand, and the United States.

The participants were randomly given one of seven vaccine combinations or a placebo “dummy” alternative. They received four shots each over 48 weeks.

The study used so-called “mosaic” vaccine combinations.

These combine pieces of different HIV virus types to elicit an immune response — when the body attacks intruder germs — against virus strains from different regions of the world.

Robust

The vaccine “induced robust (high levels of) immune responses in humans,” said Barouch.

The tests also showed the vaccine was safe. Five participants reported side-effects such as stomach pain and diarrhoea, dizziness, or back pain.

In a separate study, the same vaccine offered complete protection from infection in two-thirds of 72 trial monkeys each given six injections with an HIV-like virus.

“I cannot emphasise how badly we need to have a vaccine ... to get rid of HIV in the next generation altogether,” said Francois Venter of the University of the Witwatersrand Reproductive Health and HIV Institute in South Africa.

Approached for comment on the study, which he was not involved in,

500 years ago. (RTRS)

Museum shows life in Jesus’ time:

Jerusalem’s Franciscan friars have opened a new museum filled with artefacts related to daily life in Jesus’ time.

The Terra Sancta Museum’s new wing, built into the ruined remains of Crusader and Mamluk buildings along the Via Dolorosa in the Old City, showcases objects discovered in excavations at biblical sites Venter urged caution.

“We have been here before, with promising candidate vaccines that haven’t panned out,” he told AFP.

“This one is novel in many ways so it is exciting, but we have a long way to go.”

Jean-Daniel Lelievre of France’s Vaccine Research Institute said the vaccine was likely not the “definitive” version, but may represent “a phenomenal advance.” An estimated 37 million people live with HIV/AIDS, according to the World Health Organization.

There are about 1.8 million new infections and a million deaths every year. Almost 80 million people are estimated to have been infected since the virus was first diagnosed in the early 1980s. About 35 million have died. A vaccine has proven elusive as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) mutates easily and can hide away in cells, evading the immune system, only to reemerge and spread years later.

For now, people infected with HIV rely on lifelong virus-suppressing anti-retroviral treatment (ART) to stay healthy.

Condoms are still at the frontline of efforts to prevent infection — mainly through sex and blood contact — though more and more people use ART as prophylaxis.

The latest results come ahead of the International Aids Conference to be held in Amsterdam from July 23 to 27.

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over the past century.

The Custody of the Holy Land — the Franciscan Order’s organ in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon and Cyprus — has carried out several archaeological excavations around the region, focusing on sites with connections to the Bible. Many of the items going on display in the new exhibit, titled “The House of Herod: Life and Power in the Age of the New Testament,” have never been shown to the public.

Coins, ceramic fragments, ossuaries and stone slabs bear inscriptions in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Samaritan, illustrating the kaleidoscopic variety of cultures present in the Holy Land during the first centuries. The artefacts include everything from elegant Corinthian columns from Herod’s palace to humble wares from Galilean homes.

Father Eugenio Alliata, the museum director, said it was important to “present something of the real life of people at the time,” given that the teachings of Jesus “are so much intersected with the common life of the people.”

Among the highlights of the exhibit are one of two known silver half-shekel coins minted by Jewish rebels in the first year of the revolt against Rome in A.D. 66. A potsherd with the word Herod, the notorious king from the Gospels, was found during excavations at the Judean monarch’s monumental tomb south of Jerusalem.

Shimon Gibson, a University of North Carolina archaeologist excavating Romanera Jerusalem, said the Franciscans’ contribution to the field of archaeology in the Holy Land was “pivotal,” and that their collections were “a treasure trove of information.” (AP)