Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Reuters NewMedia - October 4, 2000
Jeremy Lovell
"A South African clade C-based Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis vector vaccine has been manufactured to undergo clinical trials in South Africa early next year," it said.
Spokeswoman Michelle Galloway said the phase one clinical trials would involve a handful of people who would be monitored for side effects for about a year. These would be followed by larger trials lasting several years, and the country hoped to make a vaccine against HIV generally available by 2005.
"It is an ambitious target but we are still aiming for it," she said.
The MRC said there were eight vaccines at various stages of development. "A successful HIV/AIDS vaccine is estimated to have the potential to save the lives of about 20 million people during the first decade of its use," it said.
"A vaccine will save the economy billions of rands in lost production and health costs. This is apart from the cumulative positive effects of future healthy populations protected against AIDS," the MRC added.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has been criticized for refusing to admit there is a direct link between HIV and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), although he has said it forms the underlying thesis of the government's policy.
He told an international conference on AIDS in the South African port city of Durban in July that poverty rather than HIV was a major contributor to AIDS. In the ensuing confusion there have been many reports of people abandoning the use of antiretroviral drugs to treat their HIV infection on the basis that there is no proof of a link.
Mbeki has accused the media of causing the crisis, and his ministers have been forced to perform verbal contortions to avoid confirming a link.
He is also reported, during a closed meeting with parliamentary members of his African National Congress, to have accused an HIV activist group -- the Treatment Action Campaign -- of being secretly funded by U.S. drug companies.
The TAC has rejected the allegation and challenged Mbeki to produce proof or withdraw the charge. Mbeki has not responded directly, but the ANC issued a statement Tuesday stating that the president had never made the accusation.
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