Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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The Associated Press - Saturday, December 7, 1996 9:34 am EST.
Kevin Costelloe, Associated Press Writer
Rolf M. Zinkernagel also said the vaccine he envisioned would vastly reduce chances that an HIV-infected person would transfer the virus to other people.
But Zinkernagel said such a vaccine would not completely eliminate chances of infection.
For those inoculated, it might take 20 to 40 years to develop AIDS after being infected with HIV, he said. It currently takes about 10 years or so for an infected person to develop full-blown AIDS, the debilitating disease that ravages the body's natural ability to ward off illness.
Zinkernagel, a researcher at the Institute of Experimental Immunology in Zurich, Switzerland, spoke at a news conference along with co-winner Peter C. Doherty. The two man were awarded the prize in October for their studies into the body's immune system in the 1970s.
"I would think that within the next 10 years, we will have something reasonable in terms of this type of vaccine," the 52-year Swiss researcher said. But he said: "HIV will not be a virus that we can eliminate completely from an infected person."
Doherty, a 56-year-old Australian, said the protease inhibitors now used to try to manage the disease in wealthy Western countries are too expensive for victims in poor and developing nations.
He said that "it's very hard to know" how successful the AIDS vaccine research will be. "But, of course, a vaccine is the only possibility for controlling AIDS worldwide," Doherty said.
Doherty is an immunologist at the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
He and Zinkernagel are to receive their awards on Tuesday, along with other Nobel Prize winners, from Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf, at a pomp-filled ceremony in Stockholm.
The two men will share a prize of 7.4 million kronor (dlr 1.1 million).
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