The smallpox vaccine could protect people against HIV infection, said an article released in the journal BMC Immunology.
According to the publication, researchers from George Mason University, George Washington and UCLA in Los Angeles, USA, showed that in the laboratory the vaccinia virus, the basis of the vaccine reduced the replication of HIV.
It appears that the compound blocks a receptor, called CCR5, on the surface of white blood cells, the same as the HIV virus uses to infect cells.
However, more studies are needed before recommending the general use of the immunogen in the fight against AIDS.
After the disappearance of the disease in 1977 (first eradicated throughout the world), the World Health Organization recommended removing the vaccine, something that happened in the same period of time when HIV and AIDS was discovered.
Hence, the researcher suggest that the biological removal may have been the cause of the rapid spread of HIV in Africa.
Several explanations were given on how HIV spread in the black continent, including wars, use of unsterilized needles and the contamination of polio vaccines, said Raymond Weinstein, author of the work.
But no theory has been able to determine the behavior of the pandemic, he said.
“Our finding that previous immunization with vaccinia virus can give a person some protection against subsequent HIV infection suggests that the withdrawal of this vaccine may have been the explanation for the rapid spread of HIV in Africa” Weinstein concluded .
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