Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1994. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press, Fri, 16 Dec 94 10:40:20 PST
Dr. Peter Piot of Belgium, appointed this week to head the new U.N. program to combat the disease, said tests will begin in 18 months to two years.
The World Health Organization has just completed a master plan for the tests of two vaccines, Piot told a news conference. He said other vaccines are being developed, but are still only in the laboratory or are being tested on animals and are years away from being tested on humans.
He said the vaccination program showed promise in the long term, but that U.N. efforts to fight the disease would have to shift emphasis from prevention to helping Third World countries cope as long-time carriers of the virus start developing AIDS.
Officials in the U.N.'s World Health Organization said the test groups were selected because they were very likely to be exposed to a strain of the AIDS virus for which a vaccine had been developed and because researchers could track them.
At least 3,000 and 4,000 people will take part and possibly as many as 20,000, he said.
Piot said Brazil and Thailand had volunteered to host the tests. Christopher Powell, spokesman for WHO's Global Program on AIDS, said the vaccines to be tested, known as GP-120, were safe to use on humans and had already been given small-scale trials on people in Europe and the United States.
They are based on a protein found in the envelope around the AIDS virus and are tailored to the virus strain HIV1 subtype B, which is found in Thailand and in the Caribbean and Latin America, but not in Africa.
Powell said the vaccines produce a limited number of antibodies and don't have a long-lasting effect.
Researchers need to conduct the tests in countries with a high incidence of AIDS and that developed countries like the United States have too low a relative rate to permit efficient testing, Piot said.
WHO estimates that about one in 250 people in the United States is infected with the AIDS virus, while in northern Thailand one in five young men and one in 12 young women is infected with HIV.
The officials said women would also be included in the initial tests, especially in community-based trials in northern Thailand.
Copyright (c) 1994 - The Associated Press. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, The Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
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Copyright © 1994 - Associated Press. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the AP Permissions Desk.
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