Thailand to host more studies for Aids vaccine
New hope for HIV prevention
ATLANTA : Further Aids vaccine studies will be carried out in Thailand after a recent large-scale clinical trial for the first time offered hope for HIV prevention by vaccination.
Researchers are planning to conduct small-scale experiments as early as the middle of next year to carry on from the work conducted in the original RV305 trial.
“We’re trying to learn as much as possible from the result of the recent vaccine trial and the follow-up studies,” said Supachai Rerks-Ngarm, principal investigator of the Phase III HIV/Aids vaccine project.
About 160 volunteers, who participated in a vaccine trial from 2003 to 2006, will be called in for the new tests, which are being conducted by the Public Health Ministry, Mahidol University’s department of clinical tropical medicine and the US military’s HIV research programme.
An efficacy trial was conducted for “prime-boost” vaccine combinations starting in October 2003. Some 16,000 volunteers in Chon Buri and Rayong participated in the study.
