Since it was first identified in 1983, HIV has infected more than 85 million people and caused some 40 million deaths worldwide.
While medication known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, can significantly reduce the risk of getting HIV, it has to be taken every day to be effective. A vaccine to provide lasting protection has eluded researchers for decades. Now, there may finally be a viable strategy for making one.
An experimental vaccine developed at Duke University triggered an elusive type of broadly neutralizing antibody in a small group of people enrolled in a 2019 clinical trial. The findings were published today in the scientific journal Cell.
âThis is one of the most pivotal studies in the HIV vaccine field to date,â says Glenda Gray, an HIV expert and the president and CEO of the South African Medical Research Council, who was not involved in the study.
A few years…
