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Rio de Janeiro - A 38-year-old man was injected with an experimental Aids vaccine on Monday, becoming the first Brazilian to take part in a test of two potential vaccines that are already being tested in the United States. The man was identified only as
"a married Rio de Janeiro resident". The two vaccines have been
found to induce immune reactions in the United States, where some 300
people have been injected, but the vaccines need to be tested in other
populations, said the project's organizer in Brazil, Dr Mauro Schechter. "We're testing them
simultaneously here, in Trinidad and in Haiti," Schechter said. Though the vaccines have
induced HIV antibodies during testing, it is not clear whether this would
be enough to prevent the disease. The vaccines would be declared a success
only after widespread studies involving people who are likely to be, or
have been, exposed to HIV. The study in Brazil is
sponsored by the US National Institute of Health, in conjunction with the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. It involves the ALVAC-HIV vCP1452
vaccine, developed by Aventis Pasteur, and the MNrgp120 vaccine, developed
by VaxGen. The ALVAC-HIV vCP1452 vaccine
uses a strain of a bird virus engineered to resemble HIV. Although the
vaccine has some of the same characteristics as HIV, the virus that causes
Aids, doctors say it is impossible for this vaccine to give anyone HIV. In the tests, subjects are
injected with either one or both of the vaccines, or they are given a
placebo. Doctors eventually plan to
vaccinate 40 people in Brazil, but Schechter says he has only 10
volunteers so far. The test's first subject said
he was proud to do his part in the fight against Aids. "If I could make my
contribution, give a grain of my help for the future vaccine against Aids,
I would be very happy. Even if this vaccine isn't effective, I know that
this study was an important step toward the discovery of a definitive
vaccine," he was quoted as saying in the local press. Brazil, with the largest number
of Aids victims in Latin America, is at the forefront of the fight against
the disease. The government distributes a "cocktail" of 12 Aids drugs free to anyone who needs it. Although some 210 500 of Brazil's 170 million people have the disease, the annual number of Aids deaths has fallen from 11 024 to 4 136 in just four years. |
