Nov. 26
— By Sugita Katyal
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India hopes to begin the first phase of trials
of an indigenously developed AIDS vaccine at the end of next year, the
president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) said
Tuesday.
"We're still in the preparatory stages of getting ready to do
clinical trials and also thinking of doing manufacturing here. That
process has been underway for about a year-and-a-half," Dr. Seth Berkley
told Reuters.
"Hopefully, they (the first trials) will be held in India at the end
of next year."
The Indian government has been working with the New York-based IAVI
on developing an AIDS vaccine for HIV strain C, the sub-type of the
virus most common in India.
IAVI, a nonprofit group pushing for an AIDS vaccine for the
developing world, has several vaccines in the works that are designed to
fight specific strains of the virus found in Africa and other hard-hit
areas.
Nearly four million Indians have HIV or AIDS, the world's second
largest number after South Africa, and a US intelligence report has
estimated the number could surge to 25 million by 2010.
The Indian government says the US intelligence report is exaggerated
but has launched a nationwide program to halt the disease.
India faces an uphill battle in tackling AIDS because of the huge
social and cultural stigma attached to the illness, which has spread
from traditionally high-risk groups such as prostitutes, drug users and
homosexuals to large rural and urban areas.
Berkley said the advantage of the vaccine was that it would be
cheaper and would provide a more permanent solution to the problem, now
found in every Indian state, than costly drugs.
"The disease is bad. We know it's now in every one of the states and
territories and we know that it's in groups that are moving around,"
Berkley said.
"So, whether it turns out that it's really three million or four
million or five million, what matters is that it's going up."
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