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No headway on HIV vaccine after 20 years

DNMUM162416 | 2/9/2010 | Author : Nozia Sayyed | WC :171 | Health

Experiment on monkeys falls flat, hunt on for other species

Global efforts over the last two decades to produce an HIV vaccine have made little headway. Here's why: Vaccine trials on monkeys and chimpanzees have routinely failed to elicit a satisfactory immune response against the human immuno-deficiency virus, the cause behind acquired immuno-deficiency syndrome (Aids).
Monkeys and chimpanzees, normally used for clinical trials, have medical parameters close to humans.
"Efforts to produce a vaccine against HIV have not been succeeding due to unavailability of suitable animal species for clinical trials,'' Dr Ramesh Paranjape, director, National Aids Research Institute (Nari) said. Polio and malaria are other diseases that took longer periods for vaccine development.
On the use of monkeys in clinical trials, Paranjape said monkeys are used in HIV vaccine trials as they get the infection simian immuno-deficiency virus, which is 60% identical to that of the HIV virus found in humans.
"We infect them to see the vaccine's efficacy and check whether it prevents the subject from getting the virus. But every time the animals are vaccinated, they get the infection....

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