This week, more than 25,000 people from the global HIV/AIDS community are in Mexico City, Mexico, attending the XVII International AIDS Conference. I am pleased to be among them.

This is the first International AIDS Conference to be held in Latin America, a region hard-hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but also a place where exceptional scientific and public health advances have been made.

The theme of the conference is Universal Action Now, which stresses the need for scientists, policymakers, activists and other concerned citizens everywhere — in rich countries and poor ones — to work even harder to defeat a scourge that already has claimed more than 25 million lives.   Read more…

Health Leader Still Hopes For Eventual Aids Cure is a post from: Healthizm

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The US government has decided not to go ahead with a proposed AIDS vaccine trial called “PAVE 100.” The decision comes a few weeks before the 17^th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City – and after a controversy earlier this year about the safety of another AIDS vaccine trial.

To find out what it means for future AIDS vaccine research, VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua spoke to Mitchell Warren, head of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition. From New York, he spoke about the proposed “PAVE 100″ vaccine trials.

“Pave 100 had been an AIDS vaccine efficacy trial that had been in design for quite a number of months. It was actually supposed to start back in September last year. And it’s testing a vaccine that’s been developed by the NIH’s (National Institutes of Health) own vaccine research center. And the vaccine is actually a combination of two products. It has what’s called a DNA Prime and an ADNO-5 (cold virus) boost. So two different prime boosts together making one vaccine candidate,” he says.

However, just before trials were to begin, news about problems in a Merck vaccine trial came to light. At first, researchers learned the Merck vaccine candidate wasn’t effective. Later, it was discovered it actually made some people more susceptible to HIV infection. Read more…

AIDS Vaccine Trial Cancelled is a post from: Healthizm

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