05 July, 2002

   AIDS vaccine human trials begin  

 A British parliamentarian was yesterday set to be the first human to be injected with a new prototype vaccine against AIDS. Dr Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat member of parliament, said he volunteered to take part in clinical trials because he believed an effective vaccination was the only way to combat the deadly disease. If the vaccine proves safe, it would be tested in Nairobi, Kenya, in three to six months' time A total of 18 people will take part in the first phase of the trials in Britain.

The volunteers, all healthy people who did not have HIV and were considered to be in low-risk categories, were taking part in these trails. These trails are meant to make sure that it really is absolutely safe.

It was the first AIDS vaccine designed specifically to fight the strain of virus seen in Africa, called strain "A.'' It was cleared for testing in humans last month.

It was aimed at Africa and at a particular type of immune response, which is call the T-cell immune response.

The vaccine, one of more than 70 being tested around the world, was a DNA vaccine based on genetic material taken from the virus.

It was developed after doctors found that some prostitutes in Kenya, where the "A'' strain of the disease was dominant, never contracted HIV, the virus which caused AIDS.

Scientists believed this was because some people's immune systems can successfully destroy the virus using so-called T-cells. Researchers would use the British trials to examine what kind of immune response was stimulated. If everything is safe in these first trials, the trails would then move to Africa and eventually test it on people who are at high risk of HIV infection.

But it was likely to be at least a decade until this vaccine, if proven safe, would be ready to be used globally.