Australia trials new HIV hope

AUSTRALIAN volunteers will be the first in the world to receive a new HIV vaccine based on a “double whammy” approach to fighting the virus.

AUSTRALIAN volunteers will be the first in the world to receive a new HIV vaccine based on a “double whammy” approach to fighting the virus.After testing on mice, rabbits and monkeys, the vaccine was ready to be tested on humans, researchers announced yesterday.The trial will determine whether the vaccine, developed by Australian scientists, is safe for humans and stimulates the right immune response.One of the trial’s co-ordinators, Stephen Kent of the University of Melbourne, said older vaccine technology had tried to induce an antibody response but this had proved unsuccessful.”It’s now become clear a different type of immune response, called a killer immune cell, is going to be required to control HIV,” Associate Professor Kent said.The trial will be run by the Australian Thai HIV Vaccine Consortium through Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital.Researchers are seeking healthy adults aged between 18 and 55 to participate in the trial. They will receive either the vaccine or a placebo.The first two shots of the treatment include the DNA part of the vaccine, which primes the immune system to recognise HIV.A third shot involves parts of the HIV virus inserted into the fowl pox virus, used as a carrier. This is designed to boost the number of cells required to prevent HIV.Chief investigator Tony Kelleher, of the University of NSW, said volunteers would not be at risk of HIV infection through the vaccine.”Although HIV proteins will be produced, there’s not enough of the virus to produce a live virus,” he said.”And even those proteins being expressed by this vaccine have been disarmed. We’ve altered them in such a way to remove their functionality, so that adds an extra degree of safeness.”While they are hopeful the vaccine will pass the safety trial, the head of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations, Don Baxter, said a vaccine available to the public was at least seven to 10 years away.(Source: The Australian, By Helen Tobler, June 05, 2003)