Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - August 20, 2007
Brenda B. Kamulegeya
The conference, said Dr. Pontiano Kaleebu, the principal investigator at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, started yesterday and runs to Wednesday. It will seek new measures in fighting HIV/Aids.
Addressing editors and health programme producers at the Sheraton Hotel, Kampala, last week, Kaleebu said the event would also try to establish why the Rhesus monkey, an animal model used in the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) vaccine trials, developed immunity to SIV compared to its counterpart, the Sooty monkey.
Scientists use animal models to develop vaccines.
Kaleebu said two phases of the HIV vaccine trial would be carried out in Uganda.
"Next month, phase II of the trial, which looks at the safety of the vaccine, will be carried out in Entebbe, involving 100 to 200 people."
He said the Phase IIB trial, a trial larger than Phase II, using another vaccine, would be carried out either at the end of the year or in 2008.
It will be conducted by the International Aids Vaccine Initiative, the Medical Research Council and the Walter Reed Project at Mulago Hospital.
Uganda was the first African country to carry out an HIV vaccine trial in 1999. Other trials followed in 2003, 2004 and several in 2006.
Some of the challenges to developing a vaccine, Kaleebu said, include poor understanding of the correlates of protection, the genetic variability of the subtypes of HIV and the integration of the virus into the human DNA.
Simon Wadiembe, a researcher and Hilary Bainemigisha of The New Vision, addressed the participants.
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