Creating a vaccine against the Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV) remains one of the biggest challenges of modern
science.
In the 27 years since HIV was discovered, scientists
have learnt a great deal about the virus and how it causes AIDS.
Making a vaccine to stop it, however, has proved a greater
challenge than anyone could have imagined, the International AIDS
Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has said in a statement issued here to
mark World AIDS Vaccine Day.
“With 7,400 people newly infected with HIV every day,
the best hope we have of ending this human catastrophe is to
develop and widely distribute effective vaccines against the
virus,” Seth Berkeley, CEO and founder of IAVI, said.
“Last September, a candidate vaccine regimen tested in
a large clinical trial in Thailand protected volunteers from HIV
with 30 per cent efficacy. That is not as protective as we would
like a vaccine to be. Still, the result electrified the field: it
was the first demonstration in humans that an AIDS vaccine is
possible,” the statement said, adding that the challenge now was to
build better vaccines.
“Weeks prior to the release of those results,
researchers at and affiliated with the IAVI served up another
advance: the discovery of two powerful new antibodies capable of
neutralising a wide variety of HIV variants and the identification
of the site on the virus to which they attach. This site provides
researchers with a promising new model to design a vaccine against
AIDS.
“Subsequently, researchers affiliated with IAVI and the
U.S. National Institutes of Health have discovered still more
broadly neutralising antibodies to HIV,” the statement said.
‘Importance of testing'
“The considerable work that lies ahead will include the
continued clinical assessment of candidate AIDS vaccines. That the
protective effect seen in the Thai trial was a surprise to most
researchers was instructive, underscoring the vital importance of
human testing.
“It is thus necessary to build and sustain sufficient
human and infrastructure capacity to conduct the required research
in such places like sub-Saharan Africa. Part of that effort will be
the cultivation of international collaborations that engage the
best researchers, companies, clinical research centres and
technologies from around the world.
“Also, HIV researchers must harness the latest
scientific insights and technological tools to generate potentially
more promising HIV vaccine candidates for human trials,” the
statement said.
Source:
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/article433145.ece