The first all-day meeting at the Barcelona Conference
was called by IAVI, the International Aids Vaccine Initiative, to review
the current progress towards a vaccine, writes Gus
Cairns.
Seth Berkley, Director of IAVI, asked in his introductory speech "Why,
21 years into the epidemic, not one Aids vaccine has yet completed full
testing." Predicted dates for the arrival of a vaccine have come
and gone. Nonetheless, José Esparza of the UNAIDS Vaccine
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Initiative predicted that at least one phase III trial
of a workable vaccine would be underway - and that there should be at
least one HIV vaccine available by 2009.
There are complex political and financial problems involved in vaccine
trials. But there are scientific problems too. Here is an explanation
of what scientists are trying to achieve, as well the problems in achieving
it.
What is a vaccine?
- A vaccine, simply put, is something that fools the immune system into acting as if you've already been infected by an organism. When the real infection comes along, the immune system is already primed to defend against it.
- The first-ever vaccine was launched in England in 1796. Edward Jenner scratched fluid from a blister caused by the relatively harmless disease of cowpox into a child's arm, and showed that this protected against a deliberate exposure to the closely-related but deadly smallpox.
