Statement from IAVI on World Vaccine Day, May 18, 2005
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Today - May 18th 2005 - is World AIDS Vaccine Day.
The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and its world-
wide partners mark 18 May as World AIDS Vaccine Day to call at-
tention to the urgent need for a vaccine that prevents HIV in-
fection and AIDS. A vaccine is critical in the fight to stop the
continuing spread of the epidemic.
On 18 May 2005 IAVI calls on the world to do much more to speed
the development of a safe and effective vaccine.
"Only a truly effective, preventive HIV vaccine can limit and
eventually eliminate the threat of AIDS."- Former US President
Bill Clinton, 18 May 1997 Morgan State University commencement
speech
A vaccine is the best hope to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Vaccines for other diseases have altered the course of human
history. They have eradicated smallpox from the world and polio
from most countries-all told, more than two dozen fatal diseases
can now be prevented by vaccines. We must add AIDS to this list.
Each day, 14,000 children, women, and men become infected with
HIV, 95% of them in developing countries. HIV infection rates
among women are increasing and account for nearly half of all
new cases. Existing prevention programs can slow the spread of
HIV and treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) drugs is helping
people who are infected live better and longer. A vaccine, how-
ever, offers the promise of ending AIDS for all time.
According to Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint
United Nations AIDS program (UNAIDS), ". . . a safe and effec-
tive AIDS vaccine would be an invaluable complement to other
prevention strategies." A preventive vaccine would be given to
people not infected with HIV to induce immune responses, pro-
tecting them from becoming infected and/or developing AIDS.
The world needs an AIDS vaccine.
The world is making progress toward an AIDS vaccine
HIV was identified as the virus that causes AIDS more than 20
years ago. Since then, scientists have been confident that a
vaccine is attainable. An increasing number of governments and
pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are involved in AIDS
vaccine research and development (R&D), which has helped to move
promising AIDS vaccine candidates into clinical trials.
A record number of AIDS vaccine candidates are now in human tri-
als
IAVI's database of the global AIDS vaccine R&D effort shows that
a record 38 vaccine candidates are now in human trials.
Africa: Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda Asia: In-
dia, Thailand Australia Europe: Belgium, Finland, France, Ger-
many, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom North America: Canada,
Puerto Rico, United States Latin America & the Caribbean: Bra-
zil, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago
For more information, please visit
www.iavireport.org/specials/specials.asp
Major challenges remain
Despite recent progress, major challenges remain.
The search for a vaccine has been much more difficult than any-
one expected when the virus was first identified. The AIDS vac-
cine field is working continuously to address these challenges.
"The field has had its share of disappointments," says Dr. Seth
Berkley, President and CEO of IAVI. "We are, however, optimistic
that these experiences will bring us closer to discovering a vi-
able AIDS vaccine."
IAVI was founded in 1996 to lead the AIDS vaccine effort as the
largest organization focused solely on advancing the development
of a vaccine. The not for- profit IAVI operates a research and
development program, collaborating with a network of more than
30 biotechnology companies, academic laboratories, and govern-
ment institutes. IAVI's financial and in-kind supporters include
the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; the Rockefeller, Sloan, and
Starr Foundations; the governments of Canada, Denmark, the Euro-
pean Union, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United
Kingdom, and the United States; multilateral donors such as the
World Bank; corporate donors including BD (Becton, Dickinson &
Co.), Continental Airlines, and DHL; leading AIDS charities such
as Crusaid, Deutsche AIDS Stiftung, and the Until There's a Cure
Foundation; and other private donors such as the Phoebe W. Haas
Charitable Trust B.
Most of the vaccine candidates that are in trials have reached
only the early stage of testing
Of the 38 AIDS vaccine candidates now in clinical trials, all
but eight are in the early stage-small trials that gather pre-
liminary data. More candidates must advance to larger trials to
test their effectiveness among thousands of volunteers. IAVI's
global efforts to build trial sites, including state-of-the-art
laboratory and clinical facilities, have progressed in six Afri-
can sites: two sites each in Kenya and Uganda and one site each
in Rwanda and Zambia.
Most of the vaccine candidates in trials today are designed to
induce just one type of immune response
A highly effective AIDS vaccine will likely elicit a combination
of immune responses: first, broadly neutralizing antibodies to
block HIV from entering cells; second, cell-mediated immune re-
sponses to destroy cells that HIV infects. Most of the vaccine
candidates are designed to induce only cell-mediated immune re-
sponses. Scientists have determined the structure of the
broadly-neutralizing antibodies that are required but they have
not yet discovered vaccine candidates that induce these antibod-
ies.
To address the neutralizing antibody question, a consortium of
laboratories, including the US National Institutes of Health,
Scripps Research Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania's
School of Medicine, is researching the design of vaccine candi-
dates that can elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV.
This work has yielded a second generation of candidates ready to
enter testing in small animals and non-human primates.
Currently, large-scale clinical studies at six African sites are
assessing the incidence of HIV infection in defined high-risk
populations. The biology of early HIV infection and the charac-
teristics of the virus that establish infection are also being
studied, offering crucial insight into the nature of a poten-
tially successful vaccine.
Significant new resources and political commitment are needed to
accelerate the discovery and development of new preventative
technologies
About US$ 650 million is spent annually on AIDS vaccine R&D.
Current AIDS vaccine spending makes up less than 1% of all
worldwide health product R&D expenditures. Additional funding
would be directed at addressing some of the underlying fundamen-
tal scientific challenges, as well as vaccine development and
testing.
Political leaders must ensure that AIDS vaccines and other new
preventive technologies remain a priority for the world. Policy-
makers can spur private sector involvement by creating balanced
incentives to make investments in AIDS vaccine R&D more attrac-
tive. One such incentive is an advance purchase commitment
(APC), which would allow countries to buy a specified number of
vaccines at a pre-determined price. APCs could encourage private
sector investment in developing new health products-particularly
vaccines-by guaranteeing a future market.
18 May is World AIDS Vaccine Day
18 May is the anniversary of former US President Clinton's 1997
commencement speech at Morgan State University in which he chal-
lenged the world to develop an AIDS vaccine.
A vaccine that stops the spread of AIDS will be one of the
world's greatest achievements. We call on the global community
to redouble its AIDS vaccine efforts to help end one of the
greatest humanitarian crises ever faced. "It is no longer a
question of whether we can develop an AIDS vaccine," said Presi-
dent Clinton, "it is only a question of when."
For more information, please visit
www.iavi.org/worldaidsvaccineday
International AIDS Vaccine Initiative
110 William Street, Floor 27, New York, NY 10038
Tel +1-212-847-1111
Fax +1-212-847-1112
http://www.iavi.org
Regional offices in Amsterdam, Delhi, and Nairobi
http://www.iavi.org/viewfile.cfm?fid=11714