HIV vaccine: Experts explore viable options

HIV vaccine: Experts explore viable options

AS Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the HIV Vaccine
Awareness Day today, an Associate Professor of Paediatric Dentistry
and Consultant at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State,
Nigeria, Dr. Morenike Ukpong, has called for all hands to be on deck to
ensure that all available HIV prevention methods reach people who
need them.
In a statement to herald the day, Ukpong who is Coordinator of the
New HIV Vaccine and Microbicide Advocacy Society, said NHVMAS, in
collaboration with the Vaccine Advocacy Research Group, AVAC, is
committed to ensure that investments in research to ensure even
more prevention options are made avilable as they are developed.
“While we know that an AIDS vaccine remains essential to ultimately
ending the epidemic, today on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day 2015, we
can report progress in the field of HIV Vaccine research as well as
progress in the development of other HIV prevention strategies.
Highlighting the global progress on clinical trails, and groundbreaking
research with other novel vaccine strategies, as well as broadly
neutralizing antibodies that target a wide range of HIV strains,
NHVMAS is calling for greater support and commitment .
“As this work moves forward, scientists and funders need to
collaborate with advocates and community stakeholders to ensure that
adequate resources are allocated to communications and community
engagement.
“With the excitement in the field, and the prospect for the future, we
ask that the robust community of researchers in the HIV field in
Nigeria needs to be at the table now that research plans are being
taken so as to ensure that the needs of Nigerians and West Africa as
a region is addressed.
“We need our HIV activists, advocates and community stakeholders
who will need to explain the science, purpose and possible outcomes
of this research need support to track the research path, ask the hard
questions, demand progress and efficiency, and other aspects of the
R&D process.
“We need to collectively ensure that Nigerians and West Africa as a
region start working conscientiously for prompt access to developed
product. We also need to engage with the exciting efforts to
understand if and how to cure HIV in people who are already
infected.”
calling for advocacy, Pointing out that tThe timeline for the work is
long and uncertain. Here, too, advocacy is needed to sustain
momentum.
The statement observed that Janssen, part of Johnson & Johnson, is
launching its own international clinical trial to test a vaccine developed
with partners. “We haven’t seen a large vaccine developer invest in
clinical trials for AIDS vaccine without public or charitable
contributions in almost a decade. This vaccine strategy incorporatesa
strategy that researchers hope will protect against the many different
types of HIV that circulate around the world.
“Second, further upstream research involves the discovery that some
people living with HIVcreate particularly potent antibodies that are
able to ‘neutralise’ many different HIV strains. A handful ofthese
‘broadly neutralising antibodies’, or bNAbs, have been isolated from
blood samples donated by HIV.

 Vanguard