U.S. and Thai researchers say an experimental AIDS vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of HIV infection by almost a third.

Thai Health Minister Withaya Kaewparadai announced the results at a press conference Thursday in Bangkok.

The researchers say the vaccine lowered the risk of infection by more than 31 percent among more than 16,000 Thai volunteers who participated in the trial.

The director general of Thailand’s Department of Disease Control, Somchai Chakrabhand, described the results as a scientifically credible breakthrough.  He said among the volunteers, 51 taking the vaccine became infected with HIV compared with 74 who received placebos.

U.S. Army researchers sponsored the six-year trial.  They say a combination of two drugs lowered the rate of HIV infection, an outcome scientists call a major step forward in the search for a vaccine.

The U.S. ambassador to Thailand, Eric John, says the experiment raises hope that drug combinations could be effective as a vaccine in the future.

An official with the U.S. military’s HIV research program, Colonel Jerome Kim, said while the results of the vaccine trial were modest, the research has raised hopes a globally effective drug may be possible in the future.

Even a marginally helpful vaccine could have a big impact.  According to the U.N. agency UNAIDS, 7,500 people are infected with HIV every day.  In 2007, two million people died of AIDS.

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Source: VOA

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