After ten years of research, scientists from the Institute of Vaccines and Gene Therapy at the University of Oregon (USA) have created an experimental vaccine that has helped Rhesus macaque monkeys with a form of the AIDS virus – the Simian Immodeficiency Virus or VIS- to control the infection for more than a year. According to the researchers, the new vaccine stimulates the immune system to rapidly attack the virus when it first enters the body, at which point it is most vulnerable.
So far, the vast majority of vaccinated monkeys have kept the virus in check for more than a year , gradually losing all signs of infection. In contrast, the macaques in the unvaccinated group have since developed the form of AIDS that affects monkeys. "We believe that (the vaccine) has the possibility of keeping the virus under complete control or eliminating the virus," explains Louis Picker, co-author of the study published in the journal Nature , who believes that it will be possible to have a vaccine ready to be tested in people within three years.
To introduce the vaccine into the primate body, Picker and his colleagues used a relatively harmless virus called cytomegalovirus (CMV) as a transport system . They chose it because scientists believe that most people are already infected with this virus, which remains in the body for life but causes few or no symptoms in most of those infected.
