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Home  binformed Looking for a vaccine
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Wednesday, 02 April 2008 |
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Local AIDS experts and activists reacted with dismay to calls from the US to abandon attempts to find a vaccine against HIV, stressing the need for a balanced approach to the epidemic.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation of Los Angeles has called for the diversion of US federal funds spent on vaccine research to therapies, testing and education, claiming that it’s unlikely a vaccine can ever be found.
Bret Hayhoe, Chairman of People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) Victoria, disagreed.
“We need a sustained multilayered approach… including working on the development of an effective vaccine,” he said.
“The threat of HIV/AIDS isn’t over till it’s over, and that means finding a vaccine.”
Dr Jonathan Anderson, president of the Australasian Society of HIV Medicine, said it was unfortunate that the most recent large scale trials had been disappointing, but that didn’t mean we should give up on finding a vaccine.
“Science is always risky, and it takes time. You make mistakes and go down a number of blind alleys before you come up with a solution, and sometimes, just when you think the night is at its darkest, it’s the time people make discoveries,” he said, apologising for all the clichés.
Several experts contacted by bnews thought that researchers should not rush to big clinical trials of vaccines at too early a stage.
Vaccine researcher Stephen Kent from the University of Melbourne said, “One of the large expenses is very large clinical trials, and I think one thing the STEP trial [the most recent failure] told us is that we need to set a very high bar for vaccines entering large efficacy trials.”
Jonathon Anderson agreed.
“They’re expensive and potentially expose people to things that might not be good for them,” he said.
Don Baxter, CEO of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations pointed out the benefits flow from vaccine research, yielding valuable insights which were useful in the development of new treatments and therapies for those already infected.
But the virus was certainly proving more difficult to design a vaccine for than had been anticipated.
“We need something like a Nobel Prize-winning conceptual breakthrough on how the virus actually works, and therefore how a vaccine might work effectively against it,” he said.
And even that might not be the end. Mike Kennedy, CEO of the Victorian AIDS Council says any vaccine is unlikely to be 100 per cent effective.
“We’re likely to end up with condoms plus vaccine, not instead of,” he said.
by DOUG POLLARD |
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