Vaccine preparedness programme kicked off

EHM News Bureau - Pune

With the National Aids Research Institute (NARI) expected to be ready with its Aids vaccine for phase I in a year, steps are being taken to increase awareness on the vaccine and prepare the society for trials.

The International Aids Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), which has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to work on Aids vaccine, announced state level public interactions to inculcate preparedness towards Aids vaccine trials among people. The first state level programme, “Working together for an Aids vaccine in India: A partnership of science and society,” for Maharashtra was held in Pune recently.

Through these meetings, to be undertaken in six states with high prevalence of HIV, concerns of various stakeholders — respective state governments, state Aids control societies, key NGOs in the field, regional and national media, specific private research institutions working in an area of related interest and concerned individuals including affected people - will be addressed and taken forward. These interactions will seek to address concerns like importance of vaccine, level of awareness and transparency, ethical issues, delivery of vaccine and beneficiaries.

NARI is working on the vaccine candidate, being a part of ICMR. IAVI, National Aids Control Organisation (NACO) and ICMR, acknowledge that without community participation, it is not possible to achieve the goal — that of developing a vaccine for India. “We have to involve community right at the start. That is the reason we need to do this well in advance even though we are still working on Aids vaccine,” said Dr Subhadra Menon of IAVI. Never mind that vaccine research, as Anjali Nayyar, country director, IAVI India says is a long and risky behaviour. Most candidates fail even before they get to the trials. Reasons are many, some of them being —- no good animal model, unexpected results, industrialized countries results may not apply to others and results of one group is not applicable to others.

Developing a vaccine for Aids is certainly difficult but equally challenging is preparing the community for trials. Educating the community as a whole on conducting Aids vaccine trials is imperative because there are a lot of issues that are involved right from selecting volunteers to conducting trials. For example, a volunteer participating in the trial will test positive for HIV because of the antibodies generated, in spite of the fact that he is not infected. This has to be understood by employers, visa offices, etc. Informing the community about the trial involves a lot of aspects like assuring the people of it safety, educating the volunteers not to engage in high risk activities because they have taken the vaccine, ensuring ethical conduct of trials etc. IAVI, NACO and ICMR are planning for phase I trials by learning from the experience of other countries and Pune community activities carried out by NARI. Dr Seema Sahay, senior research officer, NARI, who has been involved in community studies, says that background work done in Pune is extensive and information is being utilized for developing effective preparedness programmes. Apart from the initial problems there hitches for the later stage —- of complex delivery systems, intellectual property issues and licensing, manufacturing, marketing, availability and cost. And this is where IAVI comes in. “We ensure ethical trials and access,” says Nayyar.

Potential difficulties and obstacles in HIV vaccine development in India are not few. Says Dr Jean-Louis Excler, medical director, IAVI, India, “Vaccine manufacturing and technology transfer, recruitment of volunteers, approval process, agreement with national, regional authorities, lab and logistic issues are some hurdles.” But, even if the science is ready, ’Is the community ready?,” ask experts.