HIV could be reduced to a “minor chronic infection” akin to herpes, scientists developing a new vaccine have claimed.
Spanish researchers found that 22 out of 24 healthy people developed an immune response to HIV after being given the MVA-B vaccine.
Prof Mariano Esteban of the National Biotech Centre in Madrid, said of the vaccination: “It is like showing it a picture of the HIV so that it is able to recognise it if it sees it again in the future.”
The injection contains four HIV genes which stimulate T and B lymphocytes – types of white blood cells.
Prof Esteban said: “Our body is full of lymphocytes, each of them programmed to fight against a different pathogen. Training is needed when it involves a pathogen, like the HIV one, which cannot be naturally defeated.” B cells produce antibodies which attack viruses before they infect cells, while T cells detect and destroy infected cells.
The study showed that almost three-quarters of participants had developed HIV-specific antibodies 11 months after vaccination. More than a third developed a type of T cell that fights HIV, called CD4+, while more than two thirds developed another, called CD8+.
Overall, 92 per cent developed some sort of immune response. Prof Esteban acknowledged the vaccine was at an early stage, describing it as promising. But if it passed clinical trials and made it into production in the future HIV could be compared to herpes virus nowadays, a minor chronic infection that only resulted in disease when the immune system was otherwise compromised.
