When more than 3,000 people volunteered to try an experimental vaccine, little did that know they would have to be haunted with the ghosts of HIV looming large not just this Halloween, their entire lives too.
Researchers delivered shocking news when they said that the volunteers who got the shot are more susceptible to infection with HIV. The trial which began in 2004 was stopped suddenly when an independent board monitoring one of the trials noticed some troubling data.
Specifically, 24 cases of HIV infection were seen among the 741 volunteers who received at least one dose of the investigational vaccine, while 21 cases of HIV infection were seen in the 762 participants who received at least one dose of the placebo
said a statement from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which co-sponsored the trial with Merck.
The vaccine uses three pieces of DNA from the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, carried by a common virus that normally causes upper respiratory infections, called an adenovirus according to Reuters.
The researchers say that it is unlikely that the vaccine itself could cause infection and are analyzing the available data to understand if the susceptibility of acquiring HIV infection among the volunteers who received the medicine.
The volunteers were from United States, Peru, Brazil, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, South Africa and Australia. The researchers hope that this investigation would not frighten people away from taking part in the AIDS vaccine trials.
Well, it’s easy to say that such an investigation should not frighten people away. Can you imagine the effect of fear of AIDS haunting their families until the investigation proves false? Let’s really hope for the sake of the volunteers that the fears are indeed baseless.
