Post date: Oct 07, 2011 12:2:55 PM
Spain-AIDS Vaccine -- No AIDS vaccine invented yet: Expert
CCTV BEIJING - No vaccine has yet been invented in Spain that can fully prevent Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, according to a Spanish AIDS vaccine research expert.
Responding to reports saying that Spanish scientists had invented an AIDS vaccine that can prevent AIDS, Mariano Estevan, an expert on an AIDS vaccine research, said, "It is too early to say that."
Twenty-four volunteers in good health condition taking part in a clinical experiment were given vaccine MVA-B they had developed. It turned out that 22 of them, or 92 percent of those on the experiment, had produced AIDS antibodies, according to Estevan, who is on an AIDS vaccine research team at the Center of Biological Research, located in the Complutense University of Madrid. The center is the leading institute on the research into an AIDS vaccine.
"It is true that these volunteers produced antibodies after being injected with the vaccine, but this vaccine only targets at one kind of virus," he added. "It is not the vaccine that can protect us from AIDS. This research is proactive and the current result cannot fully prevent AIDS yet."
However, these antibodies could not prevent AIDS from coming into being, Estevan asserted.
According to Mr. Estevan, the MVA-B vaccine can help the lymphatic system to identify the AIDS virus and immunize it. It can also effectively stop the virus from entering and reproducing in human bodies. Yet it is still too early to say it can be applied to AIDS patients.
He said, "We will conduct further research by finding 30 AIDS infected volunteers for experiment with 20 of them injected with the vaccine while the rest injected with placebo. We want to know how effective the vaccine is."
He also said that the vaccine has been under research for 10 years. The present achievement is just the beginning, considering the fact that they will face many challenges in the future.
At present, AIDS can only be prevented in a way, but no vaccine can fully stop the AIDS virus from spreading.
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