A candidate for the Johnson & Johnson-made HIV vaccine was unable to provide sufficient protection against infection, the company announced Tuesday, the latest blow to the HIV vaccination effort.
The company said its Imbokodo study posed no security issues, but would not continue. The study enrolled approximately 2,600 young women from five countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a region where women and girls accounted for 63 percent of all new HIV infections by 2020.
Participants were randomly selected to receive the vaccine or a placebo, and the researchers found that the effectiveness of the vaccine was only 25%, which was not statistically significant.
The investigated HIV vaccine was manufactured using a common cold virus strain designed to cause no disease, the same basic technology as the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine. Participants were administered through four vaccination visits over one year.
“While we are disappointed that the vaccine candidate did not provide a sufficient level of protection against HIV infection in the Imbokodo trial, the study will provide us with important scientific findings in the ongoing research of a vaccine for prevent HIV, “Paul Stoffels, chief official of Johnson & Johnson, said in a statement.
“We continue to stand in solidarity with people who live and are vulnerable to HIV and remain committed to continuing our research against this devastating virus,” he said.
About 38 million people worldwide are infected with HIV. It is currently a treatable disease, but there is still no vaccine prevention and it can be fatal, especially in poor countries.
The study was first launched in 2017 and was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is part of the National Institutes of Health. .
In the study, 63 of 1,109 placebo group volunteers developed HIV, while 51 of the 1,079 volunteers who received the vaccine developed HIV.
“The development of a safe and effective vaccine to prevent HIV infection has proven to be a formidable scientific challenge,” said the NIAID director Anthony Fauci
Anthony Fauci: The Hill’s Sustainability Report: Mississippi River retreats under Ida attack. A WHO official in Europe says the promoters are not a “luxury” Rand Paul: “Hate for Trump” blocks research on ivermectin as COVID-19 treatment MORE He said in a statement: “While this is certainly not the result of the study we expected, we must apply the knowledge learned from the Imbokodo trial and continue our efforts to find a vaccine that protects against HIV.”
It will be followed by a second study, called Mosaic, which is testing a slightly different vaccine on men who have sex with men and trans people in the Americas and Europe, the company said.