Renewed push on US-Thai HIV vaccine
31 Aug 2013 3:53 AM IST
Health experts on Thursday called for trials of an HIV vaccine under development in Thailand to be speeded up following recent setbacks in other efforts to end the AIDS epidemic.
Initial test results of the RV144 vaccine -- jointly developed by US military researchers and the Thai health ministry -- in 2009 found a 31 per cent protection rate among 16,000 Thai volunteers.
Phase IIb trials could start next year in the kingdom, a major forum in Bangkok heard.
Experts are optimistic a modified version of the vaccine will raise the protection rate to around 50 per cent -- the figure needed to obtain regulatory approval for public release.
‘After 30 years of this epidemic we're closer to a vaccine than we ever have been,’ Mitchell Warren, of US-based AVAC Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, told AFP at a forum in Bangkok.
‘But it's important we don't let our efforts slip. The challenge now is to make sure we take the next steps quickly,’ he said.
He said the next tests would take one or two years. After that comes Phase III, the widest and most exhaustive trial stage.
Experts at the Aids Vaccine Efficacy Consortium in the Thai capital said the vaccine could be available by 2020 if tests are speeded up in Thailand, as well as in South Africa where parallel research is planned.
Thailand has pledged to establish a public-private company to manufacture the vaccine if trials are successful. The kingdom became a research hub for the illness after high rates of HIV were detected among army recruits in the 1990s,
and has been praised for its proactive approach to prevention, awareness-raising and treatment of the illness.
Initial test results of the RV144 vaccine -- jointly developed by US military researchers and the Thai health ministry -- in 2009 found a 31 per cent protection rate among 16,000 Thai volunteers.
Phase IIb trials could start next year in the kingdom, a major forum in Bangkok heard.
Experts are optimistic a modified version of the vaccine will raise the protection rate to around 50 per cent -- the figure needed to obtain regulatory approval for public release.
‘After 30 years of this epidemic we're closer to a vaccine than we ever have been,’ Mitchell Warren, of US-based AVAC Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, told AFP at a forum in Bangkok.
‘But it's important we don't let our efforts slip. The challenge now is to make sure we take the next steps quickly,’ he said.
He said the next tests would take one or two years. After that comes Phase III, the widest and most exhaustive trial stage.
Experts at the Aids Vaccine Efficacy Consortium in the Thai capital said the vaccine could be available by 2020 if tests are speeded up in Thailand, as well as in South Africa where parallel research is planned.
Thailand has pledged to establish a public-private company to manufacture the vaccine if trials are successful. The kingdom became a research hub for the illness after high rates of HIV were detected among army recruits in the 1990s,
and has been praised for its proactive approach to prevention, awareness-raising and treatment of the illness.
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