Last week, Moderna made a groundbreaking announcement: Human trials for the experimental HIV vaccine are officially underway. Together with the nonprofit scientific research organization International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Moderna has developed a vaccine that is designed to send HIV antigens to a recipient’s body in the hopes that it induces an immune response. By Jan. 27th, 2022, the two companies have inoculated their first human candidates.
“We are tremendously excited to be advancing this new direction in HIV vaccine design with Moderna’s mRNA platform”, said Mark Feinberg, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of IAVI. “The search for an HIV vaccine has been long and challenging, and having new tools in terms of immunogens and platforms could be the key to making rapid progress toward an urgently needed, effective HIV vaccine”.
How significant is this development to the long fight towards ending HIV? Keep reading to find out.
RELATED: FDA approves injectable form of PrEP given every two months
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A Brief Timeline Of HIV/AIDS
HIV, or the human immunodeficiency virus, is a virus that affects the immune system, destroying CD4 or T cells in its wake. When one’s CD4 cells are diminished to the point where one’s body can no longer effectively fight off infections, HIV turns into AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. A person with AIDS is severely immunocompromised and incredibly susceptible to life-threatening diseases.
HIV is spread via bodily fluids like blood, semen, vaginal fluids, and even breast milk, and some of the known methods of transmission are through unprotected sex, sharing intravenous needles, and through birth.
The Beginning Of The HIV Epidemic
The first confirmed HIV-related death was recorded in Congo in 1959, but it wasn’t until the 1980s when HIV/AIDS became a full blown crisis in North America. Throughout the late 80s, the disease would ravage the queer community, killing thousands of gay and bisexual men, and thus becoming known as “the gay disease”.
Despite calls from the community to act on the AIDS crisis, government response was slow. It wasn’t until September of 1985 that then president Ronald Reagan acknowledged AIDS publicly for the first time.
Progress In HIV Treatment
By 1987, the FDA approved the use of AZT, the very first medication created for the treatment of AZT. However, AZT was by no means a cure for HIV/AIDS – it simply helped to slow the progress of the virus.
By 1994, AIDS became the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 25 to 44, with the total number of AIDS cases reported surpassing 500,000. It was also around this time that the FDA approved the use of highly active antiviral therapy (HAART). The combination of drugs used in HAART blocks HIV from replicating at different points in its life cycle.
Thanks to this groundbreaking discovery, the number of HIV-related deaths dropped significantly in the following years.
Today, people living with HIV (PLHIV) can take antiretroviral therapy (ART) for treatment. Like HAART, this involves taking a combination of medications that prevent the virus from multiplying and thus destroying the body’s T cells. Reducing the amount of HIV in the virus also reduces the risk of transmission. Today, if you have an undetectable viral load – that means the level of HIV in your blood is too low to come up in a viral load test – then you have no risk of passing HIV on to your partner.
PrEP And The Future Of HIV Medication
Nowadays, you can also take medication to prevent yourself from getting HIV from sex or sharing needles. PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) comes in two types of medications and must be taken regularly to protect oneself from the risk of infection.
HIV Treatment Today
Despite these amazing advancements in medicine, HIV is still present today.
According to the CDC, in 2019, 36,801 people were diagnosed with HIV in the United States alone. There is an estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV in the United States, and 65% of all new diagnoses said to come from male-to-male sexual contact.
But the latest news about the Moderna HIV vaccine trials is indeed very promising, signaling the dawn of a new era in HIV treatment.
Utilizing technology used to develop COVID-19 productions, the HIV vaccine works by having messenger RNA (mRNA) deliver antigens to the body. The antigens elicit an immune response, teaching the body to fight off HIV cells and stop the virus from disabling B cells that help us fight the disease.
According to Moderna president Stephen Hoge, “We believe advancing this HIV vaccine program in partnership with IAVI and Scripps Research is an important step in our mission to deliver on the potential for mRNA to improve human health”.
Fifty-six HIV-negative adults chose to be involved in the clinical trials last August. They just received their first shots last week at George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
“We’ve seen promising proof of concept for germline targeting in IAVI G001, and this trial lets us take that approach to the next stage”, says Dr. William Schief, Ph.D., professor at Scripps Research and executive director of vaccine design at IAVI’s Neutralizing Antibody Center (NAC). “What’s more, we’ve been able to expedite production of clinical trial material at a remarkably rapid pace because of Moderna’s technology”.
The Bottom Line
As we’ve seen with the COVID-19 vaccine and countless other vaccines before, vaccines have been proven to be among the most effective ways of preventing and ending diseases. We have our hopes up that the Moderna and IAVI’s vaccine brings us a step closer towards eradicating HIV and AIDS. The virus has loomed over the LGBTQ+ community for long enough and taken far too many lives already.
RELATED: CDC says gay and bi men of color still disproportionately impacted by HIV
Chrisk
A game changer for sure.
There’s also another study going on where the harvest t cells and grow them exponentially to the factor of 100,000 but immune to hiv and then reinject back to the patients. I think there already on phase two of human testing.
Cam
After coming up with an extremely effective MRNA vaccine for Covid, it was going to be hard for companies like Moderna to keep claiming they couldn’t come up with a vaccine for HIV, when most likely the treatment made them far more money than a vaccine every wood.
Glad this is finally happening, hopefully if Democrats are in power we can get this vaccine out free to shelters, schools, and other areas where it is needed.
1898
“…it was going to be hard for companies like Moderna to keep claiming they couldn’t come up with a vaccine for HIV, when most likely the treatment made them far more money than a vaccine every wood.” [sic]
1. Moderna never claimed they couldn’t come up with a vaccine for HIV.
2. Moderna is not (and never has been) in the HIV treatment business.
Caine
Oh Lord I am getting old, I thought this said the MADONNA HIV Vaccine – I was like say what? huh? LOL
1898
y’all really need to proofread your stories before you put them up on the site. if you need a copy editor, i’m available 😉
Ginger Tom
Supposing this HIV vaccine is successful and gives a very high percentage of protection. How many anti-vaxxers and GOP leaders, rank and file and right wing TV pundits, shock jocks and assorted nutters are going to oppose its introduction as they have done the various Covid vaccines? I have an awful sense of foreboding that this is going to happen. I can imagine them shouting about “Freedom!” What they seem to mean is freedom to die an unnecessary and painful death.
I have no idea why they might do this because I cannot fathom their mentality but I am afraid that they will indeed do something like this, something anti-health, inhumane, nasty and just plain shitty and mean. You get the feeling there are so many people who would rather see other people die than live healthy lives. Am I being unfair to them to expect this?
barryaksarben
they would oppose it BECAUSE it may save some gay lives and they hate us to death. I was there at the beginning of the AIds outbreak in the US and so many on the rights and at the pulpits laughed and gloated demanding we be put in camps and even a few felt we should be tattooed against our will just like the nazis did to the jews. THe extreme on the right wanted us killed so you can not trust them to show ANY humanity no matter what happens. ANd just think how many people would go wild sexually if they knew they were NOW safe. That thought gives me joy. I was having sex before and it was amazing that the sexual revolution gave people so much freedom. Many many people did not join the revolution but if you wanted to it was safe and ok to do so, No one was forced into anything in normal society but we all had options and ID like younger people to have that option.
1898
they can oppose it until they’re blue in the face but it will still become available. the “family values” crowd opposed the HPV vaccine because they said it would make children promiscuous. that was years ago, and many of them still whistle the same tune today, but that didn’t stop the vaccine from becoming available to those who want it. (all gay/bi/queer men should get the HPV vaccine, by the way!)
JTinToronto
Big Pharma won’t be happy about this. They stand to lose billions if the vaccine means no one needs their medications anymore. Sounds like there could be a thriller script here. The Villain being Big Pharma trying to stop the vaccine.
1898
fortunately for big pharma, there are hundreds of other diseases they can shift their attentions to, and then charge us billions to treat. they’ll cry about this for a minute or two and then they’ll move on to the next big thing.
Chrisk
3rd world countries got approved for hiv drugs and india was going to be the producer. It was going to cost $1 per day but big pharma blocked it for many years. Untold people died. They’re reasoning was simple. If Americans saw how little it costs they’d rebel.
That’s as evil as you can get.
1898
@Chrisk in the ’90s the pharma companies also said there was no point in giving anti-HIV drugs to third world countries because the drugs have to be taken multiple times a day, always at the same time of day, and most of the citizens of those third world countries didn’t own clocks/watches/calendars and didn’t know how to tell time
not sure if that’s still the case (or if it was ever the case), but that was one of their big excuses in the late ’90s and early 2000s. to me it sounds fishy, but then again if you’ve got a family of 8 people living in a grass hut and using the same creek for both drinking water and sewage, maybe calendars and clocks are not high on the priority list. on the other hand, maybe just donate calendars and clocks to them? these companies can talk themselves out of almost anything