Commentary: Will we ever see an HIV vaccine?

WANTING TO CHANGE A VICIN FOR AN HIV VACCIN

Generally, the best way to remove a condition is to have an effective vaccine. An HIV vaccination is still obscure despite nearly 40 years of intensive research and numerous clinical trials. &nbsp,

This is not for a lack of money- it is estimated that US$ 17 billion was invested worldwide in vaccine studies and trials from 2000 to 2021 only, coming mostly from governments, and to a lesser degree from medical companies and philanthropies.

With a range of strains and subtypes, making a vaccine that is both difficult to develop and one of the fastest-mutating viruses previously studied, is HIV.

Lack of reliable animal designs to examine vaccinations on adds another challenge. Finally, there is still not enough knowledge on what constitutes normal immune responses that can be used to design vaccines and guard against HIV infection.

Four vaccine studies have been discontinued this generation alone because of a lack of performance. RV144, which was conducted on more than 16, 000 people in Thailand between 2003 and 2006, was the only research to produce reasonable results. According to the study, the vaccine’s efficacy was 31.2 % when it came to preventing infection. &nbsp,

For regulatory authorization, the cure would have required a 50 % protection rate.

However, whilst these vaccine trials perhaps have proved fruitless, they have yielded significant information needed to improve vaccine design and vaccination schedules.

The HIV- 1 immunization industry is now at a juncture. No effective clinical trials are currently underway for HIV vaccinations. But, animal studies and research into vaccine development are still continuing in the lab. It is now focused on developing methods to generate loosely neutralizing antibodies. Various strategies are now being pursued, including B- mobile genealogy vaccines, germline- targeting vaccines, and antigen- targeted vaccines.

Even with a mild potency vaccine, one with an HIV infection would be very affordable and have a significant and long-lasting impact on public health as part of a thorough prevention strategy.