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Articles: Search for AIDS vaccine falters

Posted by admin on Tuesday, July 13, 2004 - 01:25 AM

The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine, the only way to end the global crisis, is all but starting over, researchers here said Monday.
The only vaccine to complete two large-scale clinical trials, AIDSVAX, proved a flop. • A major Thai trial now enrolling patients and using a two-vaccine approach has drawn criticism for including the failed vaccine. • Most of the 30 vaccine candidates now in the pipeline are relatively untested, and they're so similar that if one fails, they all may fail. If that isn't discouraging enough, the next wave of large-scale human trials will be especially challenging because countries with the biggest epidemics lack the resources needed to study thousands of patients. "This is a global disgrace," says Seth Berkley, director of the non-profit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. "There hasn't been a serious effort, and until there is a serious effort, we'll never get there." Four years ago, the initiative called for tripling annual research money to $1.1 billion. Funding now totals $650 million; $100 million comes from drug companies, which is 1% of what the companies spend on health product development, says Scientific Blueprint 2004, the initiative's report released Monday. A separate report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, UNAIDS, shows that there were more than 13,000 new HIV infections a day last year, almost all in low- and middle-income countries. The search for an AIDS vaccine has long been overshadowed by the search for new AIDS drugs, which are far more profitable because patients must take them for life. But that cost already is beyond the means of most poor countries. Considering there are roughly 5 million new infections a year, "we won't be able to be keep pace with the demand for treatment," Helene Gayle of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation told the 15th International AIDS Conference here. Gayle is a co-chair of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a consortium of research agencies launched by the Gates Foundation last year to jump-start vaccine research. In June, G-8 nations endorsed the strategy, and the USA promised $15 million. Two major trials of vaccine candidates are still in the works. The first pairs AIDSVAX with a dose of Alvac, a vaccine made by Aventis Pasteur. Now getting started in Thailand, it will involve about 16,000 people. But critics say the trial is a waste of time because AIDSVAX has been proven not to work. John McNeill of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says researchers believe the two vaccines might work better together than by themselves.

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