AIDS vaccine: NARI dithers over taking the next step

Authorities at city institute that's frontrunner in race to develop vaccine in country not sure about going ahead with Phase II of clinical trials, say in spite of encouraging results so far they need time to ensure they are on right track

AIDS vaccine: NARI dithers over taking the next step

Taking stock: Students at the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI)
on World AIDS Day. NARI says the immune response in Phase I trials
of the AIDS vaccine it is testing was satisfactory, but researchers are
not sure if it is enough to move on to the next phase and want to first
review the progress made so far. File pic

Speaking to MiD DAY, Dr R S Paranjpe, director of NARI said that Phase I trials of the vaccine took place on 32 volunteers across two sites, that is at the city's NARI and Chennai's Tuberculosis Research Centre (TRC).
The immune response was satisfactory but researchers aren't sure if it is enough to go on. "We are taking a rain check on that and going over the basics.

The nature of the HIV virus is so volatile and there is so much of data that we need to consider and be 100 per cent sure before we proceed to the next step, which is the reason why we are taking time. Before we go to the next phase, we want to be completely secure and sure that we are doing the right thing," said Paranjpe.

Stating that most vaccine trials that had gone onto the next phase baring one had gone back to basics, Paranjpe said that he didn't want to waste precious time and expertise until he was sure of complete success of Phase I.

"We are not stating that Phase I was not successful. All we are saying is that we are analysing more data and going over basics of what we know about HIV virus and the results we have before we take the next leap. And also if we can take the next leap. This is the second time we have started HIV vaccine trials. The first time we started the research was in 2004, which was a single dose vaccine but we had to stop midway as the results were not encouraging. This time, the results were much better," he said.

The volunteers enrolled for the trials were first given a DNA-based vaccine as the prime and later it was followed up with the Modified Vaccine Ankara (MVA) as the boost. Another scientist from NARI explained that while the prime-boost combination had shown a better immune response in volunteers, the magnitude of the response neededs to be tested on a larger population.

"The efficacy of a vaccine is tested only after it shows the same immune response in a large population and not a small group. That's why this combination also needs to be tested on a larger population," said the scientist.

Fighting HIV
> Thailand is the first country to announce Phase III trials and is close to developing an HIV vaccine
> The number of people living with HIV in India is approximately 25 lakh
> The number of people affected by HIV since it was identified in 1981 is 4 crore

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