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Green light for second HIV/AIDS vaccine trial
Lynne Altenroxel. 26 August 2003. The Star. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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South Africa's second HIV/AIDS vaccine trial has been given the go-ahead and is expected to start within the next few weeks.
The trial will see further research being conducted into a promising vaccine which has already undergone initial human testing in Kenya and Britain, where it has been shown to be safe.
In those two countries the vaccine has moved on from initial safety studies - called phase-one trials - to larger, phase-two trials, where both safety and effectiveness are measured.
The South African arm of the trial will be a small, phase-one study examining the safety of different methods of injecting the same vaccine.
About 50 South African volunteers in Johannesburg and Durban will be injected just under the skin, into the skin or into the muscle, whereas the Kenyan and British participants were injected only into the skin.
The different injection routes could make a difference to the effectiveness of the vaccine.
Although the trial could start by the end of next month, the exact date still has to be confirmed.
"We haven't finalised dates at this stage," said Dr Andrew Robinson, manager of the Medical Research Council's HIV vaccine trial site in Durban.
South Africa is now scheduled to start testing two HIV/AIDS vaccines - the first approved by the Medicines Control Council in June and the second approved last week. The two trials are expected to start at more or less the same time and will run concurrently.
Both vaccines use disarmed viruses, which do not cause illness in humans, to deliver small, synthetically produced portions of HIV - instead of the whole virus - to the body.
The vaccine teaches the immune system to recognise and destroy these portions of the virus - destroying the infected cell and the whole virus - if it enters the body.
Scientists are developing a number of different HIV/AIDS vaccines using similar principles, but basing the vaccines on different HIV portions and using different disarmed viruses and bacteria to deliver them, to see which combination is most effective.
The two HIV/AIDS vaccines to be tested in South Africa are some of more than 20 being tested in humans or poised to enter human trials around the world.
"By studying different vaccine design strategies at once, rather than one at a time, South Africa will help to reduce the time needed to identify which is the most effective," said Dr Seth Berkley, president and chief executive of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
"In the search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine, speed is of the essence."
Scientists believe it will take at least a decade before an HIV/AIDS vaccine is on the market. |
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