We knew it was coming, but the Ebola vaccine should be here first.

South Africa: Massive HIV Vaccine Trial Possible in SA Soon
By Kerry Cullinan

The only HIV vaccine in the world that worked slightly in Thailand also seems to work on South Africans.

Despite being fatter than Thai people and exposed to a different strain of HIV, 100 South Africans responded in a similar way to a vaccine that protected about a third of Thai people against HIV.
"We were really excited to see the vaccine got exactly the same (immune) responses in South Africans as in Thailand," said Medical Research Council President Dr Glenda Gray at the inaugural HIV Research for Prevention conference that opened yesterday.

The Thai vaccine, known as RV144, protected 31 percent of people who received it in a massive clinical trial in Thailand involving 16 400 people.

Once the Thai results were known in 2009, the global HIV research community decided that is was a priority to test the vaccine in a country with high HIV rate, Gray told Health-e News.
For the past two years, the immune responses of the 100 South Africans vaccinated in Soweto, Klerksdorp and Cape Town have been under the microscope.

"We had to be pragmatic, said Gray. "The vaccine had to work for fat people, women and people who drink alcohol because we South Africans drink a lot."

Read whole article here. http://allafrica.com/stories/2014103...southafrica-en