Word: hiv
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...emotional cycle familiar to most AIDS-vaccine researchers: the high of finally making measurable headway against HIV, followed by the crushing low of discovering that the virus has once again found a way to elude them...
...originally hoped. In September, scientists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Army announced the results of an AIDS-vaccine study in Thailand involving more than 16,000 volunteers. The data showed that the new vaccine had protected 31% of inoculated participants from becoming infected with HIV. But a closer look at a subset of the study's volunteers now reveals that the vaccine in fact protected only 26% of the people who received it. (See pictures of Africa's AIDS crisis...
...issue is a matter of head count. If the entire group of volunteers who were enrolled in the study were included in the data, then the results would suggest a 31% effectiveness rate, with 51 in the vaccine arm and 74 in the control group becoming infected with HIV. These are the results that were announced in September. But because this particular vaccine comprised two older vaccines that were given in six doses over a six-month period - in what is referred to as a prime and boost regimen, in which the early shots prime the immune system to fend...
...generally consider all data from the complete, original population, since these numbers more accurately reflect what might happen in the real world. In other words, it's a more rigorous analysis of how effective a vaccine might be in a population of people who, realistically, could be exposed to HIV before they finish the full six doses of the vaccine...
...investigators did not reveal both sets of data in their initial announcement, the Army researchers posted this update on the website of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program: "Explaining the differences between them is complex and the appropriate venue for this technical discussion of statistics is at an open scientific conference and in the scientific publication now under review at a major journal." (See the most common hospital mishaps...