AIDS
Vaccine: HIV Vaccine Candidate Trial
Begins in 18 Cities around the World
AIDS
Weekly
October 13, 2003
The HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) and Merck & Co. Inc. have begun the first global clinical trials of Merck's HIV vaccine candidate in 18 cities worldwide. The trial is the first study to take place in so many global locations simultaneously. It is also the first collaboration between Merck and HVTN, a global clinical research network support by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health.
With roughly 14,000 new HIV infections daily, most of which occur in developing countries, testing possible vaccines in all affected regions with different strains of the virus is crucial. The trials will be conducted in diverse populations in the United States, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Haiti, Malawi, Peru, South Africa and Thailand using HTVN's network of clinical trial sites combined with a number of Merck sites.
No live HIV is used in the vaccine, so no one can become infected. About 435 HIV-negative adult volunteers will participate in the study, which is designed to establish whether the vaccine is safe, well-tolerated, practical to administer and capable of stimulating an effective immune response to HIV in humans. The trials will also examine whether differences in genetic background, nutritional status and HIV strains are important to the safety and effectiveness of HIV vaccines.
Merck's vaccine candidate is known as an HIV-1 gag replication-defective adenovirus. A common cold virus, modified so it cannot reproduce and cause illness, is used as a vector to transport a synthetically produced gene of HIV-1 - called gag - into the cells. The gene stimulates the body to generate killer T-cells that recognize and kill HIV-1 infected cells.