By Daisy Ayliffe - 1st December 2005
Medical researchers are a long way from finding a vaccine, but on World AIDS day 2005 they insist new leads offer hope, a senior scientist has told EUpolitix.com.
The HIV vaccine programme at GlaxoSmithKline is basing a candidate HIV vaccine on the measles inoculation. Researchers hope the link with measles could provide a valuable breakthrough.
“We are especially hopeful about the measles vaccine. We are convinced that it is worth evaluating the potential of these technologies,” Gerald Voss, HIV Vaccine Programme Director at GlaxoSmithKline, told this website.
“The measles vaccine is a very good because it is safe and it confers life long protection in many cases. This aspect of persistence is very important so we decided to use it as a carrier for our HIV antigen,” he added.
But while the measles vaccine may offer a shimmer of hope in the Petri dishes of science labs, HIV and AIDS continue to cause despair in the world’s poorest communities.
In 2005 the number of people living with HIV – the virus that leads to AIDS - reached its highest level ever at an estimated 40.3 million people.
Finding a vaccine for a virus that mutates quickly and infects people with a whole host of virus strains seems like a near impossible task.
“The main problem is the variability of the virus. If you get infected with the virus, over the years it diversifies,” Voss explains.
“There are frequent mutations in the genome. So in any given HIV infected person there are a whole swarm of virus strains or sequences. Related to this is the fact that in any given population you have viral-diversity. So if you think about projecting people by using a vaccine this is hard.”
And even if a vaccine is produced, it would take many more years to get it circulated and in use.
“Even once we know how to make a vaccine it may take ten years before you have something which could then be used,” Voss explains.
“I would say to people that these things take time. Some trials take three to five years and there is no way around it.”
But as the world loses heart, Voss insists science will not give up the fight.
“What makes us positive is that we are convinced that it is worth evaluating the potential of these technologies,” he argues.
“At least we think it is worth trying and that we have something potentially interesting in hand.”
The HIV vaccine programme at GlaxoSmithKline is made up of three different technologies. One of these is being funded by the European Commission.
“We are very happy that the EU is funding one of these three approaches. This shows that the European Commission is doing something about this,” Voss says.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.