Results tagged “hiv” from Vaccination News

The new initiative was announced today by the Government of Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to contribute to global efforts to develop HIV vaccines.

Developing a safe and effective vaccine to protect people against HIV is one of the most important goals in public health. The world has already lost tens of millions of lives to this virus and we must do everything we can to prevent future deaths.

The new Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative partnership will make a significant contribution to this effort through the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, established through the efforts of the G8 countries.

The Wits University has launched an HIV vaccine trial site at Mkhuhlu in Mpumalanga. The launch was attended by Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, the deputy minister of the department of health and Derek Hanekom, the deputy minister of the department of science and technology.

This trial site is the first to be established in a rural area in the country. The four other HIV vaccine sites are in urban areas including Soweto, Cape Town, Pretoria and Klerskdorp. Steve Pollman, a professor at Wits University says the HIV vaccine trial site is expected to start functioning in July. He says there will be more than one HIV vaccine to be tested. The vaccine trials are expected to last for three years.

LAS GUARANAS, Dominican Republic - Leaving her tin-roofed brothel for the day, the 42-year-old prostitute journeys to the capital for an injection that might save not only her life, but possibly millions more around the world.

Jacinta Julia Adams Fernández, a mother of three, is one of 175 Dominican prostitutes lending their bodies to a trial of what New Jersey-based Merck & Co. hopes will prove to be a vaccine against the virus that causes AIDS.

Since turning to prostitution after a divorce 13 years ago, Adams has seen friends and co-workers die from the disease. Prostitution is illegal but widespread, largely ignored by the authorities.

Feb. 9, 2007 -- An AIDS vaccine that uses a genetically engineered smallpox virus to boost anti-HIV immunity looks promising in early tests on humans.

In animal tests, the vaccine did not protect monkeys against infection with an AIDS virus. But vaccinated animals remained healthy -- and suffered no immune damage from the deadly virus.

Now, nine humans have received small doses of the vaccine: about one-tenth of the full dose. The vaccine was safe. And even at this tiny dose, it stimulated the kind of immune responses that protected monkeys.

The vaccine is the brainchild of Harriet Robinson, MD, chief of microbiology and immunology at Yerkes National Primate Research Center. Robinson is chief scientific advisor to GeoVax Labs Inc. of Atlanta, spun off from Emory University's vaccine center to market the vaccine.

A large-scale HIV vaccine trial has begun in South Africa.

The trial, the largest clinical trial to date, will see 3,000 HIV-negative men and women receive a vaccine containing copies of three HIV genes. Volunteers will not receive the full copy of the HIV virus, making it impossible to be infected in the trial.

Previous trials of the vaccine found it to be safe in stimulating cellular immune responses against HIV.

The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative's (IAVI) January 2007 Annual Issue of VAX, an editorially independent bulletin on AIDS vaccine research published by IAVI, reports that 13 new preventive AIDS vaccine trials were initiated in eight countries around the world in 2006. There are now more than 30 trials ongoing in 24 countries, across every continent.

This annual publication provides the only comprehensive listing of all AIDS vaccine clinical trial activity worldwide.

Author: Tina Rosenberg

Last month, scientists invented the AIDS vaccine. Missed it? Perhaps that’s because you were still seeking the vaccine fantasy: the magic bullet, the impenetrable shield that finally pitches this disease into the trash bin, the shot that will end not only the AIDS epidemic but our anxiety about the AIDS epidemic as well.

The vaccine thunderbolt didn’t strike — and might never. Drearily, the real AIDS vaccine is likely to be imperfect: one more tool in our arsenal, to be used along with condoms and all our other tools. It will most likely avert millions of infections and save millions of lives. But it will not end the Age of AIDS.

Russians did it?.. Wow. Great.

Institute of Immunology of Russian Academy of Sciences takes up a problem of AIDS in Russia.

Laboratory chief of physiology of immunity and allergy Georgi Gudia says about a new vaccine against AIDS: "Anti-HIV vaccine HIV - Ripol was developed in the Institute of Immunology". Said vaccine has passed all necessary preclinical trials, and, since 2005, has been passing clinical trials with volunteer attraction.

First trial stage is coming to an end, and medical experts claim they can surely say that the vaccine is harmless and well tolerated for human beings. Ripol vaccine is classified as so-called vaccine of new generation. Ripol is a proprietary development of Institute of Immunology and is unique in global practice; moreover, the vaccine affects not only the antigen, but also its carrier.

The advance market commitment plan aimed at funding the development of vaccines for diseases -- including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria -- that largely affect developing countries is "a new way for partners in the private and public sectors to solve an old problem," Orin Levine, an associate professor of international health at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Michael Klag, the Bloomberg school's dean, write in a Baltimore Sun opinion piece (Levine/Klag, Baltimore Sun, 1/3).

Under the plan, the Group of Eight industrialized nations would provide between $800 million and $6 billion to subsidize the purchase of new vaccines. Wealthy nations also would provide funding to pharmaceutical companies when they produce safe and effective vaccines, and drug makers would sell the vaccines at reduced prices in developing countries when G8 nations have provided the promised amount. 

Uganda has screened and vaccinated at least a quarter of the 50 babies needed for vaccine trial focused on prevention of HIV transmission from mother to child during breastfeeding.

The first baby in the vaccine trials was enrolled in October and by last week 14 of them had received either the vaccine or placebo saline solution (for control) while 16 have been screened to participate. 

The study is in its phase I, randomised double blind — where the researchers will not know which babies receive the vaccine or the placebo solution, while 40 babies will randomly receive the vaccine and 10 the placebo.

BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- China is seeking volunteers to participate in its second clinic trial of a new AIDS vaccine early next year, a leading Chinese scientist said recently.

The center is looking for men and women to participate in the trials which will take place in Beijing, said Shao Yiming, chief expert for the National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention.

He revealed the plan at a conference on Sino-U.S. AIDS vaccine research and development held on Sunday without indicating how many participants will be involved in the trial.

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--CytoGenix (OTCBB:CYGX) has demonstrated that a synDNA™ vaccine against human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has activity in monkeys. The study, conducted by Drs. Yin Chen and Frédéric Kendirgi at CytoGenix in collaboration with Lauren Hirao and Dr. David Weiner of the University of Pennsylvania, demonstrated that rhesus monkeys injected with a synDNA™ HIV vaccine mounted a significant cellular immune response. The study involved monkeys treated with a synDNA™ vaccine targeting two key viral proteins (gag and env) with interleukin-15 as an adjuvant.

"This observation, the first evidence of activity for a synDNA™ vaccine in non-human primates, is encouraging in that it shows that the synDNA™ vaccine is as effective as the DNA plasmid-based vaccine expressing the same antigen. The advantages of using DNA vaccines can be significantly extended using synDNA™ constructs and warrants further study to determine if the response is sufficient to protect against HIV infection,” stated David B. Weiner, Ph.D., an expert in DNA vaccination and a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

South Africa's first large-scale HIV vaccine efficacy trial will start next year at five clinical sites around the country.

Representatives from the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and the SA Aids Vaccine Initiative remained tight-lipped on details of the number of subjects and the locations of the trial sites, saying an announcement would be made in January.

But principal investigator at the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at UCT, Linda-Gail Bekker, said the trials would test the efficacy of a subtype B HIV vaccine on South Africa's predominantly subtype C sufferers.

Each HIV-infected region of the world tends to have a predominant genetic subtype of the virus.

A small Australian biotech company has secured the help of the world's leading miners to fund clinical trials of its Aids vaccine in South Africa.

In the first programme of its kind, Virax, which is listed on the Australian stock exchange and plans to float on Aim next year, has set up a non-profit organisation for corporate donors with operations and interests in South Africa and other neighbouring countries, and whose workforces are affected by the disease.

Eight companies including Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton will fund the trials, expected to cost between $5m and $6m.

There are more than six million people with HIV/Aids in the country. The incidence of the disease varies - in KwaZulu-Natal, for example, up to 35% of the population is HIV positive, and 41% of those in the penal system have the virus.

A Perth researcher playing a key role in the fight against HIV-AIDS says there could be a breakthrough in vaccines within 10 years.

Professor Simon Mallal leads a team of 42 scientists at a collaborative research centre in Perth who have already notched up a breakthrough in HIV-AIDS research.

In 2002, the team discovered that a person's genetics will determine how they will react to HIV and how they should be treated.

The unique nature of HIV has hampered the search for an Aids vaccine and it remains a distant prospect, the world's leading experts say.

When American politicians announced the discovery of HIV in 1984, they predicted that a vaccine and a cure for Aids would be available within five years. It turned out to be a hopelessly optimistic assessment as the immense technical and scientific difficulties unfolded.

Nevertheless, the discovery of the virus led to important developments. The first was a blood test to determine whether someone was HIV positive. A global research effort into the genetics and biology of HIV led to a deeper understanding of the virus's modus operandi. This pointed to ways of sabotaging viral replication in infected patients.