After more than 40 years, ‘HIV vaccine remains elusive’
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
After more than 40 years, a vaccine against HIV “remains elusive” because of several significant barriers, including the complexity of the virus and shifts in focus to other infectious diseases, like COVID-19, an expert said.
"The scientific challenges in the development of a prophylactic vaccine [for HIV] are unprecedented in the history of vaccinology,” Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD, said Sunday during the Bernard Fields Lecture at the virtual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
Barouch, who is the director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and William Bosworth Castle Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said 79 million people have been infected with HIV and 36 million have died since the virus was discovered.
Barouch noted several scientific challenges facing HIV vaccine development, including the “extensive” diversity of the virus, the early establishment of latent viral reservoirs, unclear immune correlates of protection, and the viral evasion of humoral and cellular immune responses. Additionally, he said, there is no way to elicit broadly reactive neutralizing antibodies, and attenuated viruses are unsafe for human use.
Advances in HIV vaccine research have not met high expectations especially when compared with the success of COVID-19 vaccine development, which Barouch said began after just 41 cases and one death were reported.
“The scientific community responded [to COVID-19] in a way that it never responded before in terms of the rapid generation of knowledge of the virology and immunology of disinfection, as well as the development of therapeutics and, of course, the development of vaccines,” he said.
Barouch said some advances have been made in HIV vaccine development over the past several decades, including the “substantial advancement” of gene-based vaccines, but only five experimental HIV vaccine concepts have ever been tested in human trials.
“Testing five concepts in 40 years is simply not enough for the scope of this problem,” he said. “An HIV vaccine remains elusive, despite 40 years of global effort, but intensive research continues toward this important goal, and I am confident that one day we will have an HIV vaccine.”
In response to Barouch’s lecture, we compiled a list of recent Healio stories on HIV vaccine research.
Experimental HIV vaccine unsuccessful in preventing HIV
The NIH discontinued the administration of an experimental HIV vaccine after an independent data and safety monitoring board found that the regimen did not prevent HIV. Read more.
Results of ‘truly disappointing’ HIV vaccine trial published
The results of that “truly disappointing” trial were published around a year later. Researchers found almost identical rates of infection among the HIV vaccine regimen group and placebo group. Read more.
Experimental HIV vaccine does not protect women
In another disappointing development, Johnson & Johnson’s investigational HIV vaccine was found to not provide sufficient protection against HIV infection among women enrolled in the phase 2b Imbokodo trial in sub-Saharan Africa. Read More.
For the first time, researchers say infusions of antibodies can prevent HIV infection
Researchers demonstrated for the first time that infusions of antibodies can prevent HIV infection. Insight from the trial could help guide HIV vaccine development, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD, said. Read more.
HTI vaccines ‘induce some level of viral control’ in patents with HIV who are off ART
Vaccines containing a novel T cell immunogen were safe and highly immunogenic in early-treated people with HIV who discontinued ART. Read more.
Q&A: At UN meeting, leaders recommit to fight against HIV/AIDS
The United Nations convened a high-level meeting to review progress made in the past 5 years since global leaders adopted strategies to eliminate HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. We spoke with Carl Schmid, MBA, executive director of the HIV + Hepatitis Policy Institute and co-chair of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. Read more.
Past research and ‘unlimited resources’ spur fast development of COVID-19 vaccines
HIV research helped quicken the pace of COVID-19 vaccine development, and experts believe this success could circle back. Read more.
Q&A: 40 years with the ‘amazing evil’ of HIV/AIDS
June 5, 2021, marked 40 years since MMWR published the first report on what would come to be known as AIDS. Infectious Disease News Chief Medical Editor Paul A. Volberding, MD, said one of the biggest failures in the fight is still not having a vaccine. Read more.
Collapse
Barouch D. Vaccine strategies for HIV-1 and COVID-19. Presented at: Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections; Feb. 12-16, 2022 (virtual meeting).
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts