Inter Press Service - December 21, 2000
Katy Salmon

There has been real excitement over the start of the trials and scientists and journalists gathered at the new Aids vaccine centre in Nairobi's Kenyatta Hospital to witness the launch of the pioneering programme.

However, the excitement was rapidly deflated as guests at the launch ceremony, including scientists specially flown in from Britain, were told that the trials could not begin because the Kenyan government has yet to give its approval.

Health Minister, Sam Ongeri, the ceremony's guest of honour, gave this explanation: "I have just been briefed and you don't expect a minister of government to be able to give green light to an issue of this magnitude overnight.

"And I think that would be very unfair because I do not own Kenyans and I need to consult them very effectively at certain levels of organs of government in order to arrive at that decision. Cabinet must be involved in this matter.

"It's a major issue. It's a major decision that requires Cabinet approval and we cannot just proceed in that manner without Cabinet approval."

Ongeri said the government will not complete its statutory procedures until January or February 2001.

"When you are doing any experiments that will involve human brings, it's not as straightforward as you are when you are dealing with mice or when you are dealing with chimpanzees. You are dealing with the human race and therefore any experimentation must have a full approval and there are stages through which we go," he said.

Kenyan scientists have long been at the forefront of Aids research. Work on a vaccine began 10 years ago, when scientists from the University of Nairobi discovered that some prostitutes, working in the capital's Majengo slums, were resistant to infection despite repeated exposure to the virus.

This inspired research into the development of the first Aids vaccine to be made from the local African strain of HIV, based on the women's 'killer T cells'.

The resultant vaccine comes in two parts. The first part, called the DNA vaccine, is already being tested on volunteers in Oxford, England and is now ready for testing on Kenyan volunteers.

Trials of the second part of the vaccine, called NVA, will begin in Oxford in January.

A combination of the two vaccines has triggered a very strong immune response in animals, including monkeys. Scientists hope that it will stimulate an equally strong response in people.

Dr. Seth Berkley, President of the International Aids Vaccine Initiative, is confident of success. "We know we can fully protect primates with vaccination and that humans can temporarily control infection," he says.

"Furthermore, there are persons who have been multiply exposed who show an immune response but remain uninfected. With evidence of animal and human protection, we believe a vaccine is possible."

Development of an Aids vaccine has been slow to take off because it lacks powerful advocates. Dr. Berkley points out that no vaccine has yet been fully tested anywhere in the world, despite the fact that HIV/Aids has been around for two decades.

Only 300 to 350 million US dollars is spent on HIV vaccine research which is less than two per cent of the overall 20 billion US dollars that the world is spending on HIV/Aids.

Most of the world's money has gone on developing HIV treatments in the West, which cost around 15,000 US dollars a year - well beyond the pocket of the majority of the world's HIV sufferers in the developing world.

Developing countries would provide the main market for a vaccine but the pharmaceutical industry has absolutely no incentive to provide them with such a life-saving product.

If a vaccine is developed, it would make anti-retroviral drugs, which slow the development of full blown Aids, redundant. And serious damage the industry's profits.

Ongeri denied that the government's delay in approving the Aids vaccine programme has anything to do with an ongoing dispute between Kenyan scientists over patenting rights to the vaccine.

In applying for a patent, two of the British scientists have been listed as the sole inventors of the vaccine. Their Kenyan counterparts are lobbying furiously to get their own names added before a deadline of December 23rd.

Ongeri supports the Kenyan scientists' claims. "The concept, the methodology and the idea that the T killer cells were the primary target cells that killed the invested HIV cells, that concept was developed with the support of Kenyan scientists from Majengo," he argues.

"Inventor-ship is a major issue," he says. "I know that they have talked about patentcy, that they will share patentcy rights equally. I know they have also said they will also share the resources equally but you realise that inventor-ship in terms of resource claim is about 80 per cent.

"The rest of the other areas command only 20 per cent. Therefore its a legal issue and its an issue that must be gone into thoroughly and discussed so that we all agree who are really the inventors of this thing."

Once the Aids vaccine trials in Kenya do begin, it will take at least three to five years before scientists can tell whether the vaccine actually works. After that, it will take several more years before the vaccine can be made available to the general population.

"This is a marathon and not a sprint," Dr. Berkley said. "But it is critical that we try to move forward as aggressively as possible, never to compromise on safety, but also not to put bureaucratic blockages in the otherwise streamlined systems. This is a global emergency and speed is critical. With every day we delay tens of thousands become infected and will go on to die." (ENDS/IPS/ks/sm/00)
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