Image shows a microscopic HIV virus.
I will be writing about HIV & AIDS sometime next month which will include some information not covered in the SPM syllabus.
In chapter 1 form 5, we learned that there is no effective vaccine yet to prevent HIV/AIDS infection. In view of the significant threat of HIV infection worldwide, an effective & safe vaccine is urgently needed to prevent infection & to help control the epidemic. The road to discover this vaccine is not all easy as many scientists have encountered failures, and some have even abandoned the project.
According to the recent findings released sometime last week, the prime boost combination (combining 2 vaccines) could lower the infection rate by a third. (It means about 30% of those subjects who have received this vaccines are 'protected' or become immune to HIV virus.) This is truly a breakthrough & an important milestone in the medical world after trying for decades to develop a HIV vaccine.
Every day, 7,000 people worldwide are newly infected with HIV; 2 million died of AIDS in 2007, the UN agency Unaids estimates.
Click here or here to read more about this important clinical trial.
