AIDS

In an encouraging development, an investigational vaccine regimen has been shown to be well-tolerated and to have a modest effect in preventing HIV infection in a clinical trial involving more than 16,000 adult participants in Thailand. Following a final analysis of the trial data, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, the trial sponsor, has announced that the prime-boost investigational vaccine regimen was safe and 31 percent effective in preventing HIV infection.

A team of US scientists has for the first time unravelled the entire genetic code of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, paving the way for a better understanding of how these types of viruses infect humans and hopefully speeding up the discovery and development of new drugs.