It is a scourge that for decades attacked millions of people. Multiple treatments have been tried before. Now, hope is growing: the vaccine against HIV is beginning to be tested. The American pharmaceutical company Moderna will test it on humans.

Using RNA
They are in phase 1 trials. Fifty-six healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 50 will participate. The goal will be to test the safety of the vaccine and to look for a baseline immune response. The candidate vaccine is functionally similar to the messenger RNA system. It is the same as that used in Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
In a article published by Science Alert details that Moderna will be testing two versions. There will also be four groups as part of the trial. Two will receive a combination of the vaccine versions and two will receive one or the other.
“At this early stage, the trial is not ‘blinded.’ Everyone who receives the vaccine will know what they are getting. At this time we are not trying to determine how well the vaccine works. This first phase will last about 10 months. We’ll make sure it’s safe and that it generates a basic immune response. If they make it through this phase, two more will follow.

Success stories
By 2020 some 37.6 million people worldwide were infected with HIV. The statistics are from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. It is true that the disease is no longer the automatic death sentence it once was. But those affected must take medication for life.
In recent years, two men appear to have been cured of the disease. The treatment was a stem cell bone marrow transplant to treat the cancer. It is an expensive method, and would not be effective for every patient.
A third patient appears to have been freed from HIV with a different treatment. He is a 34-year-old Brazilian man who has not been identified. He was given several potent antiviral drugs. These included maraviroc and dolutegravir. The man has gone more than 57 weeks without HIV treatment. He continues to test negative for antibodies to the virus.
This method would still require much more testing. For now, the HIV vaccine is beginning to be tested, and hope is reborn.