India Intends to Begin Phase I Trials of Indigenous HIV/AIDS Vaccine at End of 2003
India hopes to begin the first phase of testing for an indigenously developed HIV/AIDS vaccine at the end of 2003, according to Dr. Seth Berkley, president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Reuters reports. "We're still in the preparatory stages of getting ready to do clinical trials and also thinking of doing manufacturing here. That process has been under way for about a year and a half," Berkley said. The Indian government has been working with IAVI to develop an HIV/AIDS vaccine for HIV strain C, the subtype most commonly found in India (Katyal, Reuters, 11/26). In a World AIDS Day statement, Berkley said, "We must commit far greater resources to create new technologies that can decisively end our era's great plague. Exciting ideas are emerging from laboratories for new treatment and prevention methods, including the ultimate in protection from the virus, a preventive vaccine. But moving these early concepts forward to success will require much more funding and effort than we have expended so far" (IAVI release, 11/26).
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