Search for vaccine dominates international AIDS conference

An air of optimism dominated an international AIDS conference here as experts expressed growing confidence in the prospect of an early HIV vaccine. Hopes of an early vaccine were buoyed by the disclosure that production had started on the first HIV-vaccine to be developed in collaboration with African researchers, and that early clinical trials on human beings would begin next January in Britain. "Researchers from the University of Nairobi are working with vaccine scientists from Oxford University in the UK to produce a vaccine which targets the strain of HIV most prevalent in East Africa - the clade A genetic sub-type," Nick Gouedde of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) said. The organisation - the UNAIDS Collaborating Centre for Vaccine Development - was also investing in a joint American-South African vaccine scheduled to move into human trials during the year 2000. "IAVI believes that the simultaneous testing of a wide variety of different vaccine approaches will yield the fastest path to safe and effective AIDS vaccines," Gouedde said. Delegates to the eleventh International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa (ICASA) have expressed concern at the lack of accessibility, related to cost, of antiretroviral drugs that reverse or mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS in the world's poorer countries. HIV/AIDS, which delegates described as a national disaster in many developing countries, has claimed an estimated 11 million lives in sub-Saharan Africa and infected a further 22 million people. On Tuesday, the World Bank said it would respond to the AIDS pandemic in the world's poorer countries by making it the centre of its all its development efforts there. The Bank said it could provide up to US $3 billion to fighting AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa annually under the initiative.