Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia - Tuesday November 26, 2002
Sugita Katyal
"We're still in the preparatory stages of getting ready to do clinical trials and also thinking of doing manufacturing here. That process has been underway for about a year-and-a-half," Dr. Seth Berkley told Reuters.
"Hopefully, they (the first trials) will be held in India at the end of next year."
The Indian government has been working with the New York-based IAVI on developing an AIDS vaccine for HIV strain C, the sub-type of the virus most common in India.
IAVI, a nonprofit group pushing for an AIDS vaccine for the developing world, has several vaccines in the works that are designed to fight specific strains of the virus found in Africa and other hard-hit areas.
Nearly four million Indians have HIV or AIDS, the world's second largest number after South Africa, and a US intelligence report has estimated the number could surge to 25 million by 2010.
The Indian government says the US intelligence report is exaggerated but has launched a nationwide program to halt the disease.
India faces an uphill battle in tackling AIDS because of the huge social and cultural stigma attached to the illness, which has spread from traditionally high-risk groups such as prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals to large rural and urban areas.
Berkley said the advantage of the vaccine was that it would be cheaper and would provide a more permanent solution to the problem, now found in every Indian state, than costly drugs.
"The disease is bad. We know it's now in every one of the states and territories and we know that it's in groups that are moving around," Berkley said.
"So, whether it turns out that it's really three million or four million or five million, what matters is that it's going up."
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