According to a group of Spanish scientists, a new therapeutic vaccine is developed that can temporarily prevent the growth HIV virus in infected patients effectively, reports Medical Xpress.
The new vaccine was tested on a group of 36 individuals who are diagnosed of HIV virus in their body and the results show a significant reduction in the virus found in the body after being vaccinated. The therapeutic vaccine encountered no side effects and was safe to be injected with.
"What we did was give instructions to the immune system so it could learn to destroy the virus, which it does not do naturally," said Felipe Garcia, one of the scientists in the team at Barcelona University's Hospital Clinic, according to Medical Xpress.
The patients were scanned for the amount of HIV virus in the body before the study and after 12 weeks to check the difference in the HIV virus count. After 12 weeks of the vaccination trial, 12 out of 22 patients saw a significant drop of more than 90 percent in the HIV virus load in the body. And only one patient among the 11 other patients was given a control injection and saw similar results.
During the study, it was found that the vaccine was only effective for one year, after which the patients were treated with their regular combination therapy of anti-retroviral drugs. However, by the end of 24-week-trial, the HIV virus load was reduced by more than 90 percent. There was a huge variance in the drop of virus load in vaccine group than the control group. None from the control group of 10 people saw such a fall in the virus load.
"This investigation opens the path to additional studies with the final goal of achieving a functional cure-the control of HIV replication for long periods or an entire life without anti-retroviral treatment," the researchers said in a statement. "Although we still have not got a functional cure, the results published today open the possibility of achieving an optimal therapeutic vaccine, or a combination of strategies that includes a therapeutic vaccine, and could help to reach that goal."
This study was led for seven years and the researchers are now focused on developing a more effective vaccine by combining with other therapeutic vaccines to provide a complete cure to the disease.
The study is published in an online journal Science Translational Medicine.
