Scientists are more optimistic now than ever before about developing an Aids vaccine in Africa, according to Medical Research Council (MRC) chairman Malegapuru Makgoba.
”There is light now in the dark continent,” he told journalists after the opening session of the first forum of the African Aids Vaccine Programme (AAVP) in Somerset West on Monday.
Expectations of a vaccine within seven to ten years were realistic, but it was important to be ”prudent rather than expedient”.
Makgoba said the first phase-one efficacy trials on a candidate vaccine for HIV sub-type C — the variant prevalent in southern Africa — could start in South Africa soon, and was only awaiting regulatory approval.
However, this process could not be rushed.
”You need high ethical standards… we have to be sure that the day we start injecting we are not going to facing the consequences of destroying the whole process,” he said.
Makgoba — who is also chair of the AAVP — said the programme brought African scientists together in the search of an accessible and affordable vaccine for the disease ”in the shortest time possible”.
The AAVP also aimed to guard against the exploratory and ”fly-by-night research that tends to come into this region in various forms”, he said.
Pontiano Kaleebu, the programme’s principal investigator and Uganda Virus Research Institute scientist, said so far two studies had been completed in Africa — one in Kenya and one in Uganda — and one was ongoing. More were to start soon.
”A few trials have taken place, but there are a number that are lined up,” he said.
WHO-UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Initiative coordinator Jose Esparza said at the briefing that the first results of phase-three trials, conducted in the United States and Thailand, should be available in February or March next year.
”This will be the first opportunity to have an HIV vaccine, but nobody can say how effective that vaccine will be.”
He warned that vaccine trials were extremely complex from an ethical point of view and, therefore, took a long time to complete.
Esparza complained of the bias in Aids research towards developed countries.
Although Africa accounted for 70% the world’s HIV positive infections, only two of the 60 trials initiated so far had been on this continent.
African vaccine research received less than two percent — about $50-million — of resources directed towards such research world wide.
”There is a feeling that Africa cannot contribute to research… but that model is not acceptable in the case of HIV.”
Plans had to be put in place now to ensure that Africa received the vaccines first, he said.
Other scientists and health officials participating in the forum had earlier also bemoaned what they believed was the cool response of the developed world towards investing in an African Aids vaccine.
”We will continue to question and challenge the apathy of the rich nations to investing in vaccines for Africa,” Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said.
The development of a vaccine for Aids in Africa was critical and the South African government was committed to supporting such research.
However, the holistic approach needed to fight the disease required resources that were way above what developing countries could afford, she said.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa director Ebrahim Samba said the European Commission spent about $1-billion a day in protecting agriculture in Europe.
”It is not a dream or an idle hope to think that they will be sufficiently generous to assist Africa,” he said.
The AAVP is a network of scientists working to promote and facilitate HIV research and evaluation in Africa, and was initiated in June 2000 when 45 African scientists pledged collective commitment to find a vaccine.
According to the World Health Organisation the meeting in Somerset West aimed to define a plan of action for the next seven years, and to raise $233-million for the AAVP. – Sapa