BANGKOK (AFP) - – An experimental AIDS vaccine has for the first time cut the risk of infection in humans in what scientists Thursday called a “breakthrough” in the quarter-century fight against the epidemic.

The vaccine reduced the chance of being infected by a third, researchers announced after the world’s largest trial of 16,000 volunteers, carried out by the US Army and Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health.

The surprising result comes after years of fruitless attempts by the medical world to find an HIV vaccine, including one trial jab that apparently boosted infection rates.

“It is the first demonstration that a vaccine against HIV can protect against infection,” Colonel Jerome Kim of the US military HIV research programme told a news conference in Bangkok via videolink.

“This is a very important scientific advance and gives us hope that a globally effective vaccine may be possible in the future,” he said.

Thai Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said the “outcome of this study is a scientific breakthrough.”

The vaccine was a combination of two older drugs that had not reduced infection on their own and the researchers said they were now studying why the two apparently worked together.

The study combined the canarypox vaccine ALVAC, manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis of France, and AIDSVAX, originally made by VaxGen Inc and now licensed to the non-profit Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases.

Researchers said the latest vaccine showed a 31.2 percent efficacy in reducing the risk of HIV infection.

“The outcome represents a breakthrough in HIV vaccine development because for the first time ever there is evidence that HIV vaccine has preventative efficacy,” said the research team in a statement.

The vaccine was tested on volunteers — all HIV negative men and women aged from 18 to 30 — at average risk of infection in two Thai provinces near Bangkok starting in October 2003.

Half received the vaccine and the rest were given a placebo. Out of the placebo recipients 74 of 8,198 became infected compared with 51 of 8,197 who got the vaccine.

The World Health Organization and the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS congratulated the researchers for the “encouraging” results.

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Source: http://ph.news.yahoo.com

Millions of people worldwide lives and dies of HIV/AIDS, most of them in African countries and in the US. It becomes quite frightening as they are spreading in large numbers everyday. Victims vary from small children to young people aged 13-24. Many people tend to neglect or choose to neglect the importance of its prevention because of lack of awareness. Below are a few hints I have gathered though my research about prevention facts (credits: http://www.unaids.org/en/):

HIV is found in many body fluids including blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk. This means that it is mostly spread through unprotected penetrative (vaginal or anal) and oral sex with an infected person, blood transfusion with contaminated blood by using contaminated syringes, needles or other sharp instruments, and from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.

Young people who involves in pre-marital and unprotected sex do not realize the consequences of their delinquencies. There may be several campaigns about safe sex education, such us using condoms, but what I believe the most effective should be the complete abstinence from sex. Avoidance of blood transfusion can be prevented by disinfecting needles or other sharp instruments used in tattooing or injecting drugs. For pregnant mothers who are HIV positive can undergo treatments to avoid their child from inheriting the disease. So parents need to consider check-up during the earliest stages of pregnancy.

Below are the images of the smallest victims of HIV/AIDS. Be touched.

See more pictures on this link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/popup?id=1359448&contentIndex=1&start=false&page=1

In relation to the World Aids Day, I would like to humbly ask for your support to join in the campaign to stop the spread of AIDS. Please visit AIDS.gov for more information on how to help. Thank you.