New study shows HIV/AIDS vaccine can reduce infection rate by 40%

KAMPALA, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- A new study to be unveiled here next week shows that an HIV vaccine with a 60 percent efficacy can reduce the infection rate of HIV/AIDS by 40 percent, an HIV/AIDS expert said here on Thursday.

Kihumuro Apuuli, Director General of Uganda AIDS Commission told reporters that the results of the study carried out in both Uganda and Kenya shows the importance of developing a vaccine to supplement the current prevention measures.

He said that if the vaccine is distributed to 30 percent of Uganda's adult population in a period of over 30 years, nearly 800,000 new infections would be averted.

"If this vaccine was available in 2015, between 2016 and 2050, we would stop 780,000 new infections and we would reduce the number of new infections that would have occurred in that period by nearly 40 percent," he said, flanked by other researchers.

In neighboring Kenya, if a vaccine with 60 percent efficacy is given to 50 percent of the country's adult population from 2020 to2050, 2.4 million new infections would be prevented.

The study is to be unveiled at the first ever three-day international conference on HIV vaccine research and development.

The conference dubbed "The 5th African AIDS Vaccine Program (AAVP)" scheduled to start on Sunday will be held under the theme, "Africa Needs an AIDS Vaccine: Building Common Platform for Prevention Research in Africa".

Pontiano Kaleebu, the co-chair of AAVP and Acting Director of Uganda Virus Research Institute said that though various vaccine trials have not yielded major successes, there is a possibility that a vaccine will be developed within the next 10 years.

"Every year, every time, research is advancing and I am very hopeful we shall have a vaccine , I can not say it will be 100 percent effective, in the coming less than 10 years," he said.