Daily US Times, Cape Town: HIV vaccine trial in Africa shut down after results show it doesn’t work. Hopes have been dashed by the experiment to prevent HIV, the virus that causes Aids.

After revealed that the vaccine did not prevent HIV, the National Institutes of Health has stopped its HVTN 702 trial, of more than 5,000 people in South Africa.

Experts expressed ‘deep disappointment’ by the failure but urged that he search for a preventive HIV vaccine must continue.

Such vaccines do not contain HIV and do not pose any danger of giving HIV to an individual.

What was the vaccine?

The experiment was based on the only vaccine ever shown to offer even modest protection against HIV, one that was deemed 31 percent effective in Thailand. Doctors were hopeful but the results show otherwise

There are many different strains of HIV and the vaccine had been adopted to the most common HIV in South Africa. The country has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world.

Volunteers were randomly assigned to receive either the vaccine or placebo injections and primary data shows 129 HIV infections among the vaccine recipients and 123 HIV infections among those given the dummy jab.

“An HIV vaccine is essential to end the global pandemic and we hoped this vaccine candidate would work. Regrettably, it does not”, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, from the NIH.

Doctors say the vaccine was not good enough for real-world use but gave scientists a starting point.

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