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An effective HIV vaccine remains elusive despite ongoing worldwide efforts to develop one. Now, the most recent giant trial (which was industry sponsored) has made headlines because its findings, although disappointing, appear to be a small step in the right direction.
More than 16,000 Thai volunteers — about 75% were deemed to be at low or moderate risk for HIV infection — received a series of inoculations with either placebo or a boosted recombinant canarypox vector vaccine that was based on proteins matching the HIV subtypes circulating in Thailand. During more than 3 years of follow-up, the HIV infection rate was extremely low in both groups (overall, 132 infections were diagnosed). Although slightly fewer infections occurred in the vacc…