International effort to find AIDS vaccine for India

[Guest guest]

International effort to find AIDS vaccine for

India

Ganapati Mudur New Delhi BMJ 2001;322:755 ( 31 March )

India's health ministry and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative

have signed an agreement to accelerate efforts to develop and test an

AIDS vaccine against HIV subtype C, the predominant strain in India.

Under the agreement, the initiative—which was set up in 1996 with

money from UNAIDS (the joint United Nations programme on

HIV and AIDS), individual governments, and private foundations—will

invest several million dollars in the development of an AIDS

vaccine in India. It will be similar to the modified vaccinia Ankara

vaccine against HIV designed by researchers at the Medical

Research Council human immunology unit in Oxford, but appropriate for

use in India.

" Essentially, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative will

facilitate the transfer of technology so India can acquire a vaccine

based on the modified vaccinia Ankara vector, " Dr J V Prasada Rao,

director of the National AIDS Control Organisation in India

told the BMJ.

The initiative will fund the US company Therion Biologics in

Cambridge, Massachusetts, to design a recombinant vaccine based on

the modified vaccinia Ankara vector and containing gene sequences

cloned by Indian scientists from HIV subtype C in India.

Most research on AIDS vaccines until now has been directed towards HIV

subtype B, the predominant strain in North America

and Europe. HIV subtype C accounts for 84% of HIV strains in India.

India has 3.8 million people infected with HIV. The Indian government

had first signalled its intention to join global efforts to

develop an AIDS vaccine in 1998 and had launched independent efforts

to develop indigenous AIDS vaccines.

" Multiple strategies for AIDS vaccines is still considered the most

appropriate route for India, " said Dr Virender Vinayak, medical

adviser to India's department of biotechnology. But no indigenous

vaccine is close to clinical trials yet.

The proposed recombinant modified vaccinia Ankara vaccine is expected

to stimulate the production of HIV specific immune

cells that will kill cells infected with HIV. Project officials say

that it will be ready for phase I clinical trials in India within the

next two years.

Last year the Medicines Control Agency in the United Kingdom approved

phase I testing of a modified vaccinia Ankara vaccine

against HIV subtype A, the most common strain in Kenya.

Scientists from the Indian Council of Medical Research will jointly

work on the new vaccine. Under Indian law, no new drug or

vaccine can be tested in India unless it has already been tested in

its country of origin or has been developed in collaboration with

Indian researchers.

Indian policymakers say that a vaccine developed in India or in

collaboration with Indian researchers is likely to be effective in

India and could potentially be manufactured more cheaply in this

country.