HIV Vaccine Update: Canadian Scientists To Test Promising Vax On 600 People

First Posted: Dec 13, 2016 04:56 AM EST

A promising vaccine against the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has passed its initial human trial on 33 patients. Now, Canadian scientists plan to test the new vaccine on 600 people, hoping it would be effective in preventing the infection.

The vaccine, dubbed as SAV001, is a "killed whole-HIV-1 vaccine," which means that it actually contains the virus itself. However, it was modified and would not cause harm to the human body. The vaccine aims to produce antibodies against HIV in uninfected people. The vaccine follows another one set to have a large trial in South Africa.

The results of the Phase I trial, which was published in the journal Retrovirology, shows that the vaccine is safe for use. Apart from that, the results of the trial revealed that the vaccine is effective in triggering an anti-HIV immune response in HIV-positive patients. The trial can now move on to Phase II human clinical trial.

The scientists at Western University Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, who developed the vaccine, said that the Phase II trial, once approved, will test the vaccine's efficiency and ability to produce anti-HIV antibodies in patients without the infection.

The plan is to include 300 patients from the general population and 300 from those who are at high risk of acquiring the infection such as men who have sex with men, drug users engaging in intravenous injections and those who are living with an HIV-positive partner.

"We were very excited with the Phase I results," Chil-Yong Kang, one of the scientists who develop the vaccine, said in a press release.

"The trial demonstrated that our vaccine stimulates broadly neutralizing antibodies that will neutralize not only single sub-types of HIV, but other sub-types, which means that you can have the vaccine cover many different strains of the virus," he added. The new trial is expected to start in September 2017 in North America.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are approximately 36.7 million people living with HIV at the end of 2015 across the globe. As of mid-2016, about 18.2 million are already under antiretroviral treatment, which means that about half of the people with HIV are not being treated yet.