Combined HIV and hepatitis C virus vaccination a possibility

A combined vaccination against Hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HIV moved a step closer, with the results of a study* presented at The International Liver Congress™ 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. An estimated 2.3 million people globally are co-infected with HIV and HCV. HCV is the leading cause of non-AIDS deaths in co-infected individuals. The research showed that the ‘prime boost’ approach is compatible with co-administration of vectors encoding for HIV and HCV antigens (molecules capable of inducing an immune response). In this approach, the immune system is first primed through exposure to non-replicative serologically distinct adenoviral vectors that contain fragments of HCV and HIV viruses. Following this, booster vaccinations are given with the same combination of HCV and HIV fragments, each inserted into an MVA vector, a vaccination virus strain commonly used in clinical trials. “While we have drugs to treat both HIV and HCV, these are out of reach for many and...