HIV vaccine proven effective in monkeys

(Image credit: Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)

last updated 18 February 2015

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida announced Wednesday that a new drug is effective in protecting monkeys from an animal version of HIV. The findings could have greater implications as researchers work to create an HIV vaccine for humans.

Macaque monkeys that were treated with the prototype drug, eCD4-Ig, were able to fight off repeated doses of HIV, according to the study, published in the journal Nature. Michael Farzan, leader of the study, told AFP that the trial successfully found "a way to achieve long-lived, effective, vaccine-like protection from HIV 1" for the monkeys.

The drug contains two imitation receptors to trick the HIV virus into docking early, which prevents it from becoming attached to cells in the animals' immune systems. After executing the procedure once, the virus becomes harmless, AFP reports. Even when the monkeys were infected with 16 times the infectious amount of the virus, the animals treated with the drug successfully fought it off.