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HIV Vaccine Trial to Begin

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New Vision (Kampala)

February 6, 2003
Posted to the web February 6, 2003

Kampala

The trial of HIV candidate vaccine code-named DNA-MVA, is to begin after a seven-month delay, writes Joan Mugenzi.

Dr. Pontiano Kaleebu, the principal investigator of the DNA-MVA vaccine, told journalists at a two-day media training workshop on AIDS and the AIDS vaccine in Kampala, that they hoped to start the trials soon.

The workshop, that opened yesterday, is organised by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI).

The candidate vaccine that is targeting the HIV subtype A, is made by Cobra, a United Kingdom firm. HIV subtype A is a strain of the virus found in East Africa.

Preparations for the vaccine have been going on for the past three and a half years at the UVRI.

Dr. Kaleebu was, however, a disappointed man. "We have waited for years and there is nothing coming out. We don't know when it is coming," he said.

Kaleebu said in a separate interview that 50 volunteers aged between 18 and 50 would get four injections over a period of 18 months.

The injections will be at the clinical trial unit at UVRI in Entebbe.

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