India can make AIDS vaccine in 3-5 years: President

November 9, 2005

[Tuesday, November 08, 2005 10:59:51 pm PTI ]

NEW DELHI: India will come out with an anti-HIV vaccine in three to

five years, President A P J Abdul Kalam said on Tuesday, but asked

the medical community to try and complete the job in the next two

years.

" My feeling is that we will come out with a vaccine in three to five

years, " the President said in his address during the closing of an

India-Africa project partnership conclave here.

There were two candidate vaccines at present considered for use

against a sub-type C virus that is most pronounced among Indian

patients, the President said.

As part of efforts towards finding a cost-effective vaccine, experts

have reviewed the vaccine candidate for HIV sub-type C in the

pipeline, he said.

Adeno-Associated Virus (AAV) based vaccine with HIV-1 sub type C

(African strain) developed by Targetted Genetics Corp, USA was found

to be in advanced stage of test in different parts of the world.

This HIV vaccine (tgAAC09) is now undergoing Phase-I trial for

safety and immunogenicity assessment in healthy HIV uninfected

volunteers at National AIDS Research Institute, Pune.

The Indian vaccine has been developed by scientists from the

National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases in collaboration

with Pune's National Aids Research Institute, and the US' Therion

Biologics, he said.

This, the President observed, was a recombinant vaccine containing

six genes from HIV 1-C strain.

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