SWITZERLAND — According to UNAIDS, the end of the Mosaico HIV vaccine trial in January 2023 must spur a continued drive to innovate as well as an urgency to ensure that proven HIV prevention and treatment options reach all who need them.
Although no safety concerns were raised during the HPX3002/HVTN706 clinical trial, it was halted after an independent review found no evidence of a lower risk of HIV infection among vaccinated participants.
The study looked at an investigational vaccine regimen that included a mosaic-based adenovirus serotype 26 vector (Ad26.Mos4.HIV) delivered over four vaccination visits over the course of a year.
At visits three and four, a soluble protein mixture (Clade C/Mosaic gp140, adjuvanted with aluminum phosphate) was also given.
“The disappointment of the vaccine trial further underlines the importance of rolling out available HIV treatment and prevention innovations,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima in a press release on January 23, 2023.
“The search for a vaccine must continue, but it’s important to remember that despite this setback, the world can still end AIDS by 2030 by delivering all the proven prevention and treatment options to all the people who need them.”
Rapid progress against the HIV pandemic is possible if existing prevention and treatment options are made available through the sharing of technologies, the expansion of provision, and the removal of barriers to access.
UNAIDS leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.
According to the White House National Mpox Response, approximately 40% of people diagnosed with Mpox also had HIV.
Medical advances in AIDS include antiretroviral medications (ART) to suppress the virus and keep the disease under control, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) drugs to prevent HIV transmission if taken correctly by uninfected people who see themselves at risk.
But access to PrEP medications has been much slower, and in 2020, 97% of the 940,000 worldwide PrEP users lived in just 30 countries, according to the World Health Organization.
In recent years, an antiretroviral-infused vaginal ring has been shown to reduce women’s HIV risk. Initial efforts are being made to introduce it in African countries.
Today almost 29 million of the world’s 38 million HIV-infected people have access to life-saving ART drugs, according to UNAIDS.
And a vaccine against HIV remains frustratingly out of reach. That’s in contrast to the under one year it took to develop vaccines against COVID-19 that prevent severe disease, hospitalization, and death in most cases.
There are rays of hope. The National Institutes of Health, for example, launched a small, early trial of three experimental HIV vaccines in March using new messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which was used in the development of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
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