• Most likely not - these vaccines will need to be modified to contain more HIV components in order to broaden the immune response.
• Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of HIV, who is focusing on a therapeutic vaccine, expressed doubts about the effectiveness of most of the current candidates at the Barcelona Conference.

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Challenges and hope for the future

The number of vaccine candidates and the length of trials mean that multiple, overlapping phase III trials - each involve several thousand people - will probably be needed before we find a really good vaccine. Trials also pose all sorts of ethical and financial dilemmas - though failing to do them does too.
There are at least 11 different vaccine strategies and hundreds of different products under research. At the IAVI meeting the Dutch HIV expert Jaap Goudsmit suggested there were already too many CTL vaccine candidates, and Jon Cohen, the writer of 'Shots in the Dark - the Search for an Aids Vaccine' said: " We should

José Esparza

methodically try all the vaccine candidates on monkeys, and then pick the top three or four for trials on humans."
Phase III trials are huge. Don Francis, the Director of VaxGen, said his trial had involved "55,741 injections, 127,408 blood tests, and 135,371 clinic visits, costing over $200 million."
Trials pose ethical dilemmas, especially in developing countries. If, despite being vaccinated, people catch HIV, should the trial organisers provide antiretrovirals? Don Francis said no. But Peggy Johnston of the US National Institute of Health Aids

Jon Cohen

Vaccine Program said they were considering support for countries to provide antiretrovirals to infected trial volunteers.