Hopes have been dashed an experimental vaccine could protect people against HIV, the virus that causes Aids. The National Institutes of Health has stopped its HVTN 702 trial, of more than 5,000 people in South Africa, as it found the jab did not prevent HIV.

Experts expressed “deep disappointment” but added the search for a preventive HIV vaccine must continue. Such vaccines do not contain HIV and therefore do not pose any danger of giving HIV to an individual. The jab was a new version of the first HIV-vaccine candidate shown to provide some protection against the virus – in the RV144 clinical trial, in Thailand. There are many different strains of HIV and the vaccine had been adapted to the subtype most common is South Africa, which has one of the highest HIV rates in the world. There were great hopes that the vaccine would work and it could then be adapted to cover other strains of HIV circulating in other parts of the world.(BBC)…[+]