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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | India to join global HIV vaccine effort

India to join global HIV vaccine effort

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published Published on Aug 15, 2012   modified Modified on Aug 15, 2012
-The Telegraph

A global effort to create a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that has abandoned dozens of candidate vaccines because of unsatisfactory trials has persuaded India to join its new vaccine-design strategy.

The Translational Health Sciences and Technology Institute, a government research centre in a Haryana suburb near Delhi, will set up a laboratory for basic research to seek out molecules that can generate antibodies to effectively neutralise HIV.

India’s biotechnology department will provide Rs 20 crore for the laboratory, with an equal amount expected to come from the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, a 16-year global programme aimed at delivering a vaccine to prevent HIV infection.

The THSTI-IAVI laboratory first announced by biotechnology department officials last year is expected to become operational within the next six months, said Sudhanshu Vrati, THSTI director.

“We plan to recruit two principal investigators and four scientists for the lab,” Vrati said.

Although anti-viral drugs can halt the progress of HIV infection, scientists say an effective vaccine will be necessary to dramatically reduce new infections.

“For every two people on treatment, we have five new infections,” said IAVI executive director Margaret McGlynn.

IAVI chief scientific officer Wayne Koff said the effort at the THSTI would be part of a new strategy supported by the IAVI aimed at finding ways to generate a class of antibodies called “broadly neutralising antibodies” that are expected to protect people from HIV infections.

Scientists estimate that over the past two decades, some 70 candidate vaccines have been abandoned after laboratory, animal or human trials proved unsatisfactory. Only four vaccines had moved into human efficacy studies, but no candidate is ready yet for commercialisation.

India’s drug company Cipla today said it has launched a four-drug kit to treat HIV infections priced at Rs 158 per kit. The kit has two tablets packaged in one strip, representing a single day’s treatment, Cipla said in a statement.

“While we’re committed to making drugs affordable and accessible, we also endeavour to offer HIV-infected patients drugs that are potent, effective, patient-friendly and easy to take,” said Cipla chairperson Y.K. Hamied.

As the tablets are in a single strip, a patient does not have to remember which tablet he has taken, and will not mistakenly take two of the same tablet on the same day, Hamied said.

Studies of this drug combination — one tablet combines tenofovir with emtricitabine and the second combines atazanavir with ritonavir — have shown that it is effective and well tolerated by over 80 per cent of patients, Cipla added.

The Telegraph, 15 August, 2012, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120815/jsp/nation/story_15858471.jsp#.UCuVfKAXVwc


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