AFP
NOS News•
The pharmaceutical company Janssen stops with an experimental vaccine against HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS. The vaccine has no harmful side effects, but is not effective against HIV. That’s what the National Institutes of Health have, the US health services, announced.
Since 2019, the vaccine has been tested on 3,900 people between the ages of 18 and 60 from Europe, North America and South America. The subjects were transgender people and men who have sex with men. In the study, the subjects received the vaccine four times a year.
The vaccine contained various parts of the HIV virus. That’s why it was called a mosaic vaccine. The idea was that this would teach the immune system to recognize and switch off the HIV virus.
Part of the group was given a placebo without the active substance. Now that the study has been completed, it appears that HIV infections are equal in both groups. The vaccine therefore makes no difference in the number of HIV infections.
Healing not yet possible
It is not the first time that a vaccine against HIV has proved ineffective. A previous study of women in Sub-Saharan Africa also failed to produce an effective vaccine. That vaccine also had no harmful side effects.
A lot of research has been done on the prevention of HIV, including the infections increase worldwide. There are as yet no medicines that can cure an HIV infection, but HIV-inhibiting medicines can help prevent infection in addition to suppressing the virus.
In the Netherlands, the GGD therefore provides the HIV prevention pill PrEP to people with an increased risk of HIV. According to the RIVM, in the Netherlands these are mainly men who have sex with men.
People who are very likely to have contracted the HIV virus can also receive a PEP treatment from the GGD or the emergency department. PEP is an HIV-inhibiting treatment that lasts four weeks and must be started within 72 hours of possible exposure to HIV. This could be, for example, after unsafe sex with an HIV-positive person, a rape, or drug use with a shared needle. Unlike PrEP, PEP is only used afterwards after a high risk of HIV infection.
