4 VIEWS & REVIEWS

mv vaccine ~ in ThaDand: an opportunity too good to ignore?

Thailand's decision to test mv vaccines produced by Genentech and Biocine, which were rejected by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year, has rekindled debate about whether the trials are justified in the face of discouraging results from laboratory tests and preliminary human trials.

Prayura Kunasol. former head of Thailand's Communicable Disease Control department, explains that political leaders in Thailand are detennined to achieve a better intervention method to control the AIDS epidemic in the country, where it is estimated that I in 60 people have been infected with mY, predominantly through heterosexual sex.

The vaccines produced by Biocine and Genentech are scheduled to undergo smaU-scale trials in 1996. Although the vaccines did not protect all the participants in preliminary trials in the US from being infected with mv, the HIV-gp-120 vaccines should not be wrinen off without a clinica1 trial to determine whether they provide even a limited degree of protection, says researcher Ronald Desrosiers.

It is unclear who will pay for the trials, which are expected to cost as much as SUS 1 0 million dollars each.

Another hotly debated issue is whether it is worth testing the 'B-subtype' vaccines in a population where subtype E HIV infection is becoming increasingly common, although subtype B is still prevalent.

Researchers like William Heywood, an epidemiologist currently working for the WHO to help Thailand set up the trials. are confident that the trials will provide a great opportunity for progress. They maintain that. whether the preparations work or not, these trials will facilitate the development of a new generation of vaccines and put to rest many lingering uncertainties.

Cobeu J. lbailoDd wdghs AIDS v-=ciDI: u::w. Sc:icIa: 270: \IOol-907. 10 Nov 1995 _,

01§27OO1951101&-OOO41$Ol.ocf> Adt.lm.rn.tlonal UmltM ,_. All rlllhbl ~