APACHA Press release: The result of Thai HIV vaccine trial.

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APACHA Press release: The result of Thai HIV vaccine trial.

Asian People's Alliance for Combating HIV and AIDS (APACHA) welcome the result

of the Thai HIV vaccine trial with cautious optimism.

APACHA particularly congratulates Dr. Supachai Rerks-Ngarm, M.D., of the Thai

Ministry of Public Health's Department of Disease Control, the principal

investigator of the study which was sponsored by the U.S. Army in collaboration

with NIAID, Sanofi Pasteur and GSID.

While acknowledging the importance of the need for sustained clinical trials,

it is unfortunate that the detail of the outcome of the trial, including the

data and methods of such an important study is not widely available in the

public domain for review and further analysis

The news about the result of the Vaccine trial should not distract the efforts

of the governments and the civil society to address the vulnerability of people

who are at the greater risk of HIV infection and real issues faced by the people

living with and affected by HIV.

An HIV vaccine will definitely add additional ammunition to our fight against

the social determinants and social consequences of HIV infection. However, HIV

vaccine will not provide a- single magic bullet- solution to HIV epidemic.

APACHA Believes, the real heroes of this trial are the 16,402 men and women who

participated in this trial and the researchers lead by Dr. Supachai

Rerks-Ngarm. The patent rights and the intellectual rights of the data and

other potential outcome of this trial should be shared with the trial

participants as well.

The result of the study is a very important step towards the fight against HIV.

However, we are concerned about the lack of public access to the scientific data

of this study said, Prof, Joe . Chair person of APACHA.

APACHA believes, normally such a discovery should have been presented for a

publication in peer reviewed journals and the press release should have done

when the findings of the study is published. So that the data and method of the

study should have been in the public domain for analysis and review.

We overwhelmingly applaud the news about the result of the clinical trial. We

may be writing to the Ministry of Health of the Royal Thai Government ,

requesting to take necessary steps to present the data of this trial in the

public domain " . Said, Dr. Noor ul Zaman Rafiq Co Chairperson of APACHA.

It seems, the trial focused on B and E subsets of the viral strain that are

common in Thailand. APACHA would like to see, the efficacy of the present

vaccine combination being tested among other population groups exhibiting

different viral epidemiology.

Due to lack of access to the trail data in the public domain, many aspects of

the trial results are unclear. Researchers must explain to the general public

on how the drug combination worked and whether one part was more effective than

the other and will the same combination of the vaccine is effective to other

viral subtypes as well?.

We request the concerned UN agencies to acknowledge the work of Dr. Supachai

Rerks-Ngarm, the principal investigator of this study and to ensure that the

data and the details of this study is available in the public domain at the

earliest so that independent review and analysis of the data could be done.

APACHA request UNAIDS, to urgently develop certain minimum standards for their

press releases- reporting the findings of such important discoveries in the

field of HIV response in future.

_______________________

APACHA is the largest multi sectoral, civil society network of HIV & AIDS

response in Asia. www.apachanet.org

For further details please contact. Dr. Anita Manandhar Interim Coordinator of

APACHA

APACHA International Secretariat

Madhur Marg, Chun Devi

House no 23 P O Box : 7647

Kathmandu, Nepal

Phone : 00977-1-4721277, 4721278, 4720926

Email:secretariat.asia@...