Can India be the inventor of an anti-AIDS vaccine?
By, Tamil Nadu News, newkerala.com, December 1, 2006
Chennai, Dec 1: World AIDS Day is being observed around the globe today, and in India, a team of scientists is carrying out trials of an indigenous anti-AIDS vaccine, providing a ray of hope to many suffering from the deadly disease.
The vaccine, which has been developed by an Indian virologist, is being tried on 32 volunteers for its efficacy.
"At the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), the vaccine being tried is a part of a multicentric trial where other countries are also taking part. The vaccine trial is being done only in Chennai, and is designed by a virologist from another ICMR institute, the National Cholera and Enteric Disease Centre from Kolkata. The virologist is Dr Shekhar Chakravarty," said Dr V D Ramanathan, Deputy Director, Department of Clinical Pathology, Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai.
The vaccine has been specifically designed to detect strains of HIV commonly seen in India. It has been tailored to the HIV strain C, the sub-type of the virus most common in India.
"This is a very unique vaccine, and it is specifically designed for strains of HIV commonly seen in India. Therefore, it is India specific and a matter of pride for us that it has been designed by a fellow Indian," said Dr. Ramanathan.
The Chennai trial results are likely to be made available by mid 2008.
Vaccine trials on humans for different strains of the virus are already being conducted in the United States, Europe, Africa and South America.
India is an active participant in the global search for an AIDS vaccine, and a part of the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which sponsors research partnerships to develop and test promising vaccine candidates.
The IAVI, a New York-based global non-profit scientific organization, is working on speeding up the search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller, the Sloan and Starr Foundations and the World Bank are the main funding agencies for this initiative.
"The initiative was to first form a partnership of agencies which can successfully carry out a very complex task like production and invention of the vaccine. The second part was to generate the necessary scientific concepts for producing a vaccine. And, once this was over, we had to identify the agencies, which could do this. These were the three essential components that have been identified and put into practice," added Dr Ramanathan.
Dr. Suniti Solomon, the founder-director of the Y.R. Gaitonde Center for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), a premier HIV/AIDS care and support centre here, says more laboratories and pharmaceutical outfits should come forward to encourage this research initiative.
"We need more centres and laboratories. You know the infrastructure to prepare the vaccine and once it is produced and we are successful in India, we need to manufacture it. So, we definitely need pharmaceutical companies to chip in. So, it would be a network of organisations that need to be together if we want a successful vaccine," said Dr. Solomon.
The demand for a vaccine would eventually be on a mass scale that would mean necessary facilities for its manufacture, which has to be shared by the pharmaceutical manufactures in the private sector.
Available studies indicate that an AIDS vaccine even with 50 per cent efficacy, provided to 30 per cent of the population would avert 17 million new infections worldwide between 2015 and 2030. Ultimately, this would translate to reduction of new infections by more than half by 2030.
India continues to fall far short of its own target of giving ARV drugs to 100,000 AIDS patients by 2005 - it still only reaches 47,300 of the estimated 500,000 to 750,000 people who need the drugs.
Experts have warned that, if India does not get on top of its HIV epidemic by next year, it could spiral out of control.
The rising prevalence of HIV in more than 100 districts shows that a decade of government efforts has not slowed down the virus, which is now estimated to have infected 5.7 million Indians.
But, the National AIDS Control Organisation says that only 5.2 million Indians are affected.
--- ANI
Source: http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=59625
Chennai, Dec 1: World AIDS Day is being observed around the globe today, and in India, a team of scientists is carrying out trials of an indigenous anti-AIDS vaccine, providing a ray of hope to many suffering from the deadly disease.
The vaccine, which has been developed by an Indian virologist, is being tried on 32 volunteers for its efficacy.
"At the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), the vaccine being tried is a part of a multicentric trial where other countries are also taking part. The vaccine trial is being done only in Chennai, and is designed by a virologist from another ICMR institute, the National Cholera and Enteric Disease Centre from Kolkata. The virologist is Dr Shekhar Chakravarty," said Dr V D Ramanathan, Deputy Director, Department of Clinical Pathology, Tuberculosis Research Centre, Chennai.
The vaccine has been specifically designed to detect strains of HIV commonly seen in India. It has been tailored to the HIV strain C, the sub-type of the virus most common in India.
"This is a very unique vaccine, and it is specifically designed for strains of HIV commonly seen in India. Therefore, it is India specific and a matter of pride for us that it has been designed by a fellow Indian," said Dr. Ramanathan.
The Chennai trial results are likely to be made available by mid 2008.
Vaccine trials on humans for different strains of the virus are already being conducted in the United States, Europe, Africa and South America.
India is an active participant in the global search for an AIDS vaccine, and a part of the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which sponsors research partnerships to develop and test promising vaccine candidates.
The IAVI, a New York-based global non-profit scientific organization, is working on speeding up the search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller, the Sloan and Starr Foundations and the World Bank are the main funding agencies for this initiative.
"The initiative was to first form a partnership of agencies which can successfully carry out a very complex task like production and invention of the vaccine. The second part was to generate the necessary scientific concepts for producing a vaccine. And, once this was over, we had to identify the agencies, which could do this. These were the three essential components that have been identified and put into practice," added Dr Ramanathan.
Dr. Suniti Solomon, the founder-director of the Y.R. Gaitonde Center for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), a premier HIV/AIDS care and support centre here, says more laboratories and pharmaceutical outfits should come forward to encourage this research initiative.
"We need more centres and laboratories. You know the infrastructure to prepare the vaccine and once it is produced and we are successful in India, we need to manufacture it. So, we definitely need pharmaceutical companies to chip in. So, it would be a network of organisations that need to be together if we want a successful vaccine," said Dr. Solomon.
The demand for a vaccine would eventually be on a mass scale that would mean necessary facilities for its manufacture, which has to be shared by the pharmaceutical manufactures in the private sector.
Available studies indicate that an AIDS vaccine even with 50 per cent efficacy, provided to 30 per cent of the population would avert 17 million new infections worldwide between 2015 and 2030. Ultimately, this would translate to reduction of new infections by more than half by 2030.
India continues to fall far short of its own target of giving ARV drugs to 100,000 AIDS patients by 2005 - it still only reaches 47,300 of the estimated 500,000 to 750,000 people who need the drugs.
Experts have warned that, if India does not get on top of its HIV epidemic by next year, it could spiral out of control.
The rising prevalence of HIV in more than 100 districts shows that a decade of government efforts has not slowed down the virus, which is now estimated to have infected 5.7 million Indians.
But, the National AIDS Control Organisation says that only 5.2 million Indians are affected.
--- ANI
Source: http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=59625
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 4:48 pm
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