India to develop its own AIDS vaccine.

ABSTRACT

PIP UNAIDS believes that more than 3 million Indians are infected with HIV, approximately 200,000 of which have AIDS. Failing in its attempt to check the spread of HIV/AIDS through disease prevention messages and the promotion of condom use, the government of India has launched a program to develop a vaccine against HIV/AIDS. Some see the development of a vaccine as the only viable course of action against HIV/AIDS in India, for educational campaigns have failed and AIDS drugs are unaffordable even for wealthy Indians. Interest in producing an indigenous vaccine stems from concern that vaccines being developed in the West may not be effective in India due to differences in HIV subtypes. A 5-year extension of an existing Indo-US program started in 1987 to develop vaccines against a range of infectious diseases was signed in December 1997, with AIDS added to the list of original program diseases. This revised agreement includes collaboration with US vaccine research groups and possible US funding, but details of the terms have yet to be disclosed. The following Indian teams are working on the project the government Department of Biotechnology (DBT), the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (New Delhi), Christian Medical College (Vellore), and the National AIDS Research Institute (Pune). The DBT argues that there will be enough funding even without a US contribution. Indian scientists plan to develop a DNA vaccine mixture containing the desired gene sequences of the HIV subtypes which are prevalent in India.^ieng