Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - Monday October 13 3:28 PM EDT
"The search is proving more and more difficult because the HIV virus is changing all the time," French researcher Luc Montagnier told the conference on the disease late on Sunday, adding that he thought no vaccine likely for some years yet.
He said many pharmaceutical companies had already cancelled programmes to develop an HIV vaccine.
Montagnier told around 2,500 delegates that while some animals had been made resistant to HIV in tests, applying this to humans was proving difficult and involved separate medical risks.
Nonetheless, he said he was optimistic significant progress in the treatment of humans was likely within five to 10 years.
Doctors who have volunteered to inject themselves to test an experimental AIDS vaccine were warned earlier this month that they ran serious risk of catching the disease.
The warning came after at least one monkey infected with a similar vaccine, based on a genetically-altered virus, later came down with AIDS.
Some 22 million people across the world are estimated to be living either with HIV or with the full Acquired Immune Defiency Syndrome (AIDS). AIDS-related deaths have reached some six million.
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