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HIV Vaccine: What Journalists Can Do

Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)

May 30, 2003
Posted to the web May 30, 2003

Irene Morikang
 

Regional training workshop organised in Kenya to increase media participation in HIV vaccine development in Africa.

Journalists and the search for an HIV/AIDS vaccine might seem a strange combination. Granted, the search for a vaccine is considered by many people as the preserve of researchers. But as Dr Saladin Osmanov of the WHO/UNAIDS puts it, researchers rely a lot on the media to inform the public on what is being done in the laboratories. "People need information about the scientific advances underway to give them hope", he said.

This certainly explains why the African AIDS Vaccine Programme (AAVP) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) decided to organise a two-day regional training workshop for African Journalists to increase media participation in reporting on HIV vaccine development in Africa. The meeting on May 22 and 23, 2002, took place at the lake Naivasha country club, located some 100 kilometres from Nairobi, Kenya. It brought together some 22 journalists from 10 African countries- Cameroon, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Zambia, Botswana and Kenya. "Africa is bearing the brunt of the AIDS epidemic. It is only fair that everyone should contribute in his or her own way in the fight against the scourge. Since there is no cure of HIV/AIDS, an effective vaccine would hold the key to the eventual control of this problem", the WHO representative for Kenya, Dr Peter Eriki noted at the opening of the workshop.

The journalists were informed about the different candidate vaccines underway in the world and Africa in particular with special focus on the Kenyan Vaccine Initiative (KAVI). They also shared experiences about the coverage of HIV/AIDS in their respective countries, received guidelines on ways of better reporting on HIV vaccine related issues and how to avoid stigmatisation and stereotyping when writing on HIV/AIDS. A presentation of the Kenyan AIDS Vaccine Initiative (KAVI) which began in 1998 indicated that the solution to HIV/AIDS might as well come from Africa. The unit within the department of medical microbiology at the University of Nairobi, initiated HIV-1 vaccine trails in 2001. So far, the vaccine has been tested on animals and is presently in phase one of the human trails. Dr Omu Anzala, Programme Manager for KAVI says their results are encouraging as the vaccine is safe and the immune response impressive.

The workshop also provided an opportunity for Dr Owili, President of 13th International Conference of AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) to throw light on the conference that will hold in the Kenyatta International Conference Centre in Nairobi from 21 to 26 September 2003 under the theme: Access to care: challenges. He explained that the theme was chosen in recognition of the difficulties and challenges that are faced in accessing care and treatment for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.