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HIV Vaccine Shows Efficacy; Researchers to Conduct Big-Scale Trial in South Africa This Year

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Researchers will conduct a huge scale test on HIV vaccine effectiveness in Africa, later this year.

HIV vaccines known as HTVN100

The developed HIV vaccine is a promising HIV cure that was already tested in 2015. Now, scientists will start to give the HIV vaccine to 5,400 people in South Africa.

According to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the vaccine is an improvement of the first clinical trial in Thailand. It has proven to give more than 30 percent of protection against HIV virus. There were several measurements of the HIV vaccine: the effectiveness, the T-cell progress, and the response of patient's immune system.

The HTVN 100 is more like a modified version from the previous regimen. Thus, it's been adapted to the HIV endemic occurs in South Africa, NIAID wrote.

This year's HIV vaccine trial will have more volunteers than the previous test. In 2015, there were 250 HIV patients who took part. Researchers will give the vaccine in four South African cities and it will continue for three years.

The success of the trial will determine vaccine and treatment developments for HIV/AIDS in the future. Linda G. Bekker from Desmond Tutu HIV Centre hopes that the HIV vaccine will be the first licensable regimen in the world.

Will this be the HIV cures?

As much as researchers hope to find HIV cures, giving HIV vaccines alone will not be enough for protection against the virus. Scientists suggest the vaccines as an effective method that works together with the current safeguards like prevention and social intervention.

Researchers have worked on HIV vaccines for decades but there isn't any significant result that proves to kick the virus out. Hence, even the smallest progress of HIV cures is considered as exciting news. Do you think this HIV vaccine trials will show better efficacy?

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