Why inventing a vaccine for AIDS is tougher than for COVID
The 4-decades long effort to create an AIDS vaccine suffered a blow with news that a vaccine in a late stage trial was discontinued because results showed it to be ineffective. What are the obstacles?
The four-decades long effort to create an HIV vaccine suffered a blow last week with news that Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, was discontinuing the only current late-stage clinical trial of a vaccine. Results showed it to be ineffective.
"I was disappointed in the outcome," says Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, an organization that advocates for HIV prevention to end AIDS. "It was a setback in the search for a vaccine." So it's back to the drawing board with several early, small-scale clinical trials underway and more that might eventually enter the research pipeline.
