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February 14, 2003
U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS
"Experimental AIDS Vaccine Safe for Babies--US Study"
Reuters (www.reuters.com) (02/12/03); Fox, Maggie
Early indicators suggest that ALVAC-HIV vCP205, an experimental AIDS vaccine made by Aventis Pasteur, does not cause side effects in infants born to women infected with HIV, and it may help protect them from becoming infected at all. Led by Dr. Elizabeth MacFarland of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, researchers tested the vaccine, which is a combination of canary pox, a distant relative of the virus used in the smallpox vaccine, and several proteins from HIV. Aventis Pasteur's head of research, Jim Tartaglia, says that although none of the babies were tested for HIV, which sometimes can take years to detect, the vaccine did cause an immune response, which suggests that it could be effective in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
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