NIAID's vaccine preventing HIV regimen flops

In a major disappointment for AIDS research, the USA’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has stopped administration of vaccinations in its HVTN 702 clinical trial of an investigational HIV vaccine.

This action was taken because an independent data and safety monitoring board (DSMB) found during an interim review that the regimen did not prevent HIV. Importantly, the DSMB did not express any concern regarding participant safety.

The Phase IIb/III study, named HVTN 702 or Uhambo, began in 2016 and is taking place in South Africa. It was testing an investigational prime-boost vaccine regimen based on the only vaccine regimen ever to show protection from HIV - the regimen tested in the RV144 clinical trial in Thailand led by the US Military HIV Research Program and the Thai Ministry of Health. For HVTN 702, the vaccine regimen was adapted to the HIV subtype Clade C most common in southern Africa, where the pandemic is most pervasive.