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February 24, 2003

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Large Trial Finds AIDS Vaccine Fails to Stop Infection"

New York Times (www.nytimes.com) (02/24/03) P. A1; Pollack, Andrew; Altman, Lawrence K.

The maker of the first AIDS vaccine to be tested in a large study, VaxGen, said Sunday that while the vaccine failed in its primary objective--to protect a large number of participants from becoming infected with HIV--it appeared to lower the infection rate among African-Americans and other non-Hispanic minorities taking part in the trial.  The researchers noted that the findings are statistically significant; however, they could change if the vaccine were tested on more members of minority groups.  The AIDSvax vaccine--made from the gp120 protein, using genetically engineered hamster ovary cells--was designed to stimulate the immune system into producing antibodies that would attach to the gp120 protein in HIV and prevent infection.  The trial, conducted at 59 sites in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Netherlands, involved 5,400 high-risk volunteers, none of whom had HIV when the study began.  The researchers administered the vaccine to two-thirds of the participants in a series of shots over three years, and they found that 5.7 percent of those who received the vaccine became infected over the course of the trial, compared to 5.8 percent of the placebo recipients.  However, the rate of infection among African-American, Asian, and other minorities was 3.7 percent, compared to 9.9 percent among the placebo group.  UNAIDS' Dr. Jose Esparza noted that his organization would soon meet with experts to determine what the next steps will be, and he pointed out that it is necessary to determine whether the differences in response to the vaccine were because of ethnicity alone, or because of differences in behavior patterns in ethnic groups, for example.

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