It starts out talking about a 37 year old heroin addict who was getting his blood drain at Clinic 17 of the Bangkok Vaccine Evaluation Group. He has high hopes that his contribution to the search for a vaccine for HIV will be beneficial to society in the years to come. He is one out of 2,500 injecting drug users in Thailand that have enrolled in a trial of the first potential HIV vaccine to reach the third and final stage of clinical testing. Not only are people in Thailand searching for a vaccine but people all over North America and Europe have also been involved in the search. Almost 8,000 people at high risk for HIV but HIV negative, have volunteered to receive either injections of the vaccine called AIDSVAX or a placebo, without knowing which would be given. Over a course of three years, these participants blood is drawn at 6 month intervals. If the vaccine group shows a lower infection rate than the placebo group, there is evidence that the vaccine is working. The results will take many years to come out however, we will have results from the first trials, begun in 1998-99 in Europe and North America by the end of this year.
More than 36 million people world wide are carriers of HIV even though 95% of them are never actually diagnosed. Statistics say that every 24 hours 15,00 more people become infected with the virus while 8,00 others die from the disease caused by HIV, AIDS. AIDS is a horrible disease that takes victims mercilessly when it disables their immune system and causes them to die from otherwise treatable ailments. If a vaccine were to be developed to help prevent this disease, thousands of lives would be spared.
I think it is very interesting how scientists go about creating vaccines to help prevent the various epidemic diseases taking victims all across the globe.This hopeful vaccine for HIV would benefit society an unbelievable amount because so many people who would otherwise die from HIV/AIDS, would be saved. However if this vaccine is developed, it should not be used as an excuse to continue having unprotected sex because safe sex should always be practiced.
This was a very interesting article. I think it is interesting that people who are HIV negative are still willing to do this test. However I think it is great that so many people are willing to go through with it. If this test is able to help find the cure to AIDs the cuts down one of the most deadly diseases in the world. To think that 35 million people have AIDs is crazy. The scariest part is that 95% of people don't know they have it. I think that people should be more readily tested if that many people are infected with the virus! If people knew they had the disease earlier then that could potentially save someone who gets it from them but turns out to be HIV positive. I also think that there should be more trials like this one. If there were more than one, for example one in every country, this would greatly widen the amount of people to try the trial and also a better result if you are able to look at more people's results.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this article. It is good to see that people are really taking a step to try to cure/prevent HIV. It is also great to see the number of people that are willing to be in the trials and use their disease to try to help others avoid it. I am also amazed that 95% of people that carry AIDS have no idea that they have it. wow.
ReplyDeleteI think tha this is a very good article. I like how so many poeple are putting in the effort to find a cure for this disease. this disease can spread so fast in so little time. it says that in 24 hours 15,000 more people can contract it while 800 more can die from it. it is so devastating to see the large number of people that are effected by it and i think that this article shows it perfectly. for someone to be so dedicated to donate their blood in hopes to make a vaccine, shows that people desperately want to end this disease so someday it wont threaten the life of thousands. this is a very thoughtful aticle that shows the effort that people can put in to try and stop and cur a disease such as HIV/AIDS.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone else has said in response to this article. Along with Gracie and Megan, I am also amazed at the fact that 95% of the people with AIDS don't know they have it. That is such a large percentage and it is astonishing to hear that. I also think it is good that so many people are willing to help by participating in the test to help find a cure for this disease. It is a disease that so many people get and it would be great if they could find a vaccine that could prevent it.
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