Study begins of vaccine for HIV strain found in Africa. The trials are for the HIV-DNA vaccine based on subtype A, the predominant strain in East Africa. The trial is the first one to test a vaccine made from an HIV strain common in Africa, and only the second HIV vaccine clinical study to take place on African soil. The vaccine was developed through an IAVI sponsored partnership between Oxford University and the University of Nairobi. Dr. Pamela Idenya Mandela became the first volunteer be injected with vaccine.
Today marks a ground breaking and truly fantastic achievement.
On the 25 January, the Kenya Government endorsed plans for the trials of the vaccine. The study was also approved by the Kenya National Council on science and Technology and the Kenyatta National Hospital's Ethics and Research Committee. Seventeen volunteers have been immunized since last August, and so far no adverse effects have been observed. The scientific rationale of the vaccine grew out of studies of sex-workers in Nairobi. A small minority of the this group of women was observed to remain HIV negative despite continued exposure to the virus.