Major HIV Vaccine Trial in South Africa Starts Monday, November 28, 2016

[Ptrk3]

From an online Washington Post story (November 25,2016).  The inoculation starts Monday, November 28, 2016.

Summary:  Should the vaccine prove to be 50 percent to 60 percent effective, experts say, that would be sufficient for drugmakers Sanofi Pasteur and GSK to begin licensing negotiations with the South African government. While such a rate is well below the acceptable margin for other vaccines, it would still make this one worth producing here — given that nearly 1 in 5 people are infected.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/major-hiv-vaccine-trial-in-south-africa-again-stokes-hope/2016/11/25/188cd56a-b0ff-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html?ref=yfp

[terrymoore]

amazing and interesting. X-ing fingers..

[CaveyUK]

This is going to be a hard one to measure though, surely.

So if only a small % of the study participants acquire HIV, then does that mean the vaccine worked or does it just mean that the majority would happen to not catch it anyway, regardless of drug?

If it were a 90%+ effectiveness out of the box, then you could draw certain conclusions, but if the 'hope' is that it could be 50% effective, then thats will be hard to differentiate from pure chance. Especially as participants in the fairly small study are also being given safe-sex guidance before starting...

Not knocking the endeavour and if it stops 1 person from becoming HIV+ then it's worthwhile to an extent, but conclusions are going to be hard to reach I suspect

[paintedroom]

Nearly 37 million people worldwide with Hiv...my god,i live in a bubble.