Large-scale HIV vaccine trial to launch in South Africa

A new HIV vaccine trial in South Africa has been found to be safe and generates comparable immune responses to those in the 2009 study that showed the vaccine can protect people from infection.

The study, named HVTN 702, will be advanced into a large scale clinical trial to determine whether the regimen is safe, tolerable and effective at preventing HIV infection among South African adults.

“For the first time in seven years, the scientific community is embarking on a large-scale clinical trial of an HIV vaccine, the product of years of study and experimentation,” said Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a co-founder of the trial. “A safe and effective HIV vaccine could help bring about a durable end to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and is particularly needed in southern Africa, where HIV is more pervasive than anywhere else in the world.”

The HVTN 702 vaccine regimen is currently in a smaller trial, named HVTN 100, and is based on the regimen investigated in the U.S. Military HIV Research Program-led RV144 clinical trial in Thailand that was able to provide greater protection than the RV144 regimen and has been adapted to the HIV subtype that predominates in southern Africa. With a 31.2 percent rate of being more effective at preventing HIV infection in the 3.5 years after vaccination, RV144 will be adjusted in the HVTN 702 study to try to increase the magnitude and duration of vaccine-elicited immune responses.

The trail will enroll 5,400 HIV-uninfected men and women from 18 to 35 years old who are at risk for HIV infection.

“HVTN 702 will tell us whether the initial success observed in HVTN 100 will bear fruit in the form of a safe and effective HIV vaccine designed for the people of southern Africa,” said Chair Glenda Gray, MBBCH, FCPaed (SA) president and chief executive officer of the South African Medical Research Council.