A HIV Vaccine trial that was being run in Africa has been halted after preliminary data suggested it would not be effective in preventing infections.
The trial that was being run in three countries; Uganda, Tanzania and South Africa has been stopped and according to the Chief Investigator, they must restructure before commencing their trials.
The HIV Vaccine trial was part of a wider initiative called PrEPVacc, that began in December 2020. The initiative saw an enrolment of 1,512 healthy adults aged 18-40. The project was supposed to end in 2024 before the investigators halted it for preventive concerns.
According to the programme’s independent data and safety monitoring committee, the recommendations were that if they continue with the initiative, they will not be able to show that the vaccine can be effective, hence the pause of the whole process.
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This has however been a huge setback to efforts to find an effective vaccine against the virus. So far, the virus has claimed about 40 million lives globally. Another 39 million are living with HIV, the majority of them in Africa.
The trial was led by African researchers with support from various European institutions like Imperial College London. The researchers were testing two different combinations of experimental HIV vaccines.
The research was also testing a new form of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), a drug that reduces the risk of getting HIV, to see if it was as effective as existing drugs. That part of the trial is ongoing.
A statement released on Wednesday by the vaccine trial programme said the failed trial, which was the only remaining active HIV vaccine efficacy trial in the world, underscored “how challenging it is to develop an effective HIV vaccine”.
The researchers drew their participants mostly from populations at high risk of infection like sex workers, gay men and fishermen.