WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (AFP) - US funding earmarked for an AIDS vaccine will fall off in 2006, forcing scientists to cooperate among themselves and with the private sector, a top government researcher said Monday.
"As we now approach 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, it has become clear that not only will there be a less than two percent increase in the (National Institutes of Health) NIH budget, that the previous largess that was associated with all research, particularly HIV, is now not going to be a reality for the future," said Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute of Health of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"That will mean working even more with private industry and groups such as the nonprofit International AIDS Vaccine Initiative to get the most bang for the buck," he said.
The US institutes make up the largest public research group in the world. Of the 600 million dollars spent worldwide on developing an anti HIV vaccine, 520 million are spent by NIH. The rest comes from the public-private international initiative.
The new US budgetary constraints spell stricter criteria for measuring the success of 30 clinical trials being run internationally, Fauci said.
Studies that do not yield sufficiently encouraging results will lose funding so that more promising research can be financed, he said.
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