India clears trials for AIDS vaccine

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India clears trials for AIDS vaccine

KRITTIVAS MUKHERJEE

REUTERS [ FRIDAY, JULY 15, 2005 01:05:33 PM]

NEW DELHI: India has approved human volunteer trials for the

country's second preventive vaccine against HIV, the virus that

leads to AIDS, health officials said on Thursday.

Home to the second-largest number of people living with the killer

virus after South Africa, India started human trials on its first

preventive vaccine in February and authorities say those are

progressing well.

" All clearances have come for the human trials of a second vaccine, "

S Y Quraishi, director of the state-run National AIDS Control

Organisation (NACO), said.

The trials on at least 30 volunteers will start in September.

Scientists need to test different vaccines on the same or separate

strains of a virus to develop the most effective antibodies.

A vaccine for the developing world, where anti-retroviral drugs are

out of reach for millions of HIV-infected people, would be the

ultimate prize in the fight against AIDS. But efforts to find one

have been hampered by the virus's ability to mutate.

In February, researchers began trials on 34 healthy adult volunteers

for tgAAC09 vaccine that targets HIV subtype C, widely prevalent in

India, South Africa and China.

The trials for the second vaccine -- called the Modified Vaccinia

Ankara (MVA) -- will be carried out at the Tuberculosis Research

Centre in the southern city of Madras. The MVA will also target HIV

subtype C

PHASED TRIALS

Officials say in the first phase of such trials, vaccines are tested

on healthy volunteers who are given a controlled dosage of the HIV

subtype C virus to create resistance. All volunteers sign on to the

trial, accepting the risks of possible HIV infection.

In the second phase, the vaccine is given to a small group of high-

risk individuals -- sex workers, drug users and homosexuals -- to

check for the efficacy of the dosage. They are not asked to alter

their regular lifestyles.

If the vaccine is seen to work on both groups, it is given to a

larger group of up to 1,000 people. All volunteers at every stage of

the trial have to be HIV-negative when they sign up.

In the fourth and last phase -- if the results of earlier phases are

found to be satisfactory -- marketing of the vaccine is done and

post-marketing surveillance carried out. Experts say it takes years

for a successful vaccine to be developed.

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which coordinates

the global search for a vaccine, says India is important because of

its advanced biomedical research facilities and strong

pharmaceutical industry which has developed cheap and effective AIDS

drugs that are exported across the globe.

India has an HIV/AIDS caseload of more than 5.13 million people and

experts say that number could quadruple by 2010 as many people are

still reluctant to discuss safe sex openly.

Many Indians cannot afford anti-retroviral drugs, which cost Rs

1,300 a month.

Human trials of vaccines against different HIV strains of the are

being conducted in the United States, Europe and Africa.

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