Eveniment

Measles vaccine 'could fight Aids' Monday November 28, 11:35 AM

British, French and Belgian scientific researchers are working on revolutionary plans to use measles vaccine to fight Aids.

The multimillion-pound EU-funded collaboration involves "using an ancient scourge to fight a new one", said a statement by GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and the Paris-based Institut Pasteur, which have joined forces to develop the new vaccine.

The idea is to fuse genes from the HIV virus on to an existing measles vaccine known to deliver long-lasting immunity.

The




work has won a £3.5 million contribution from the European Commission and was unveiled in Paris, in the week of World Aids Day on December 1.
Four research centres are involved, including the Vaccine Institute at St George's Hospital Medical School in London and the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire.

"The gravity of the global Aids crisis requires us to examine every viable option to develop a safe and effective vaccine," said Jean Stephenne, president of GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, the vaccine division of GSK.

"We are excited to be collaborating with Institut Pasteur, which brings a distinguished history and its innovative measles vector technology to this collaboration.

"We also applaud the EU for providing much-needed financial support. This is a model public-private partnership. GSK is pursuing a number of different Aids vaccine approaches. Our goal is to develop an Aids vaccine and to make it available to all who need it."

Alice Dautry, president of the Institut Pasteur - where HIV was discovered 20 years ago - said: "The researchers of the Institut are still committed to innovative research efforts to fight this unacceptable threat. We are pleased to develop this programme with the support of the EU and to be collaborating with GlaxoSmithKline."

The European Commission's director of health research, Octavi Quintana-Trias, emphasised the importance of industry involvement in developing an effective and safe HIV vaccine: "The collaboration of one of the world's leading vaccine manufacturers with a world-leading biomedical research centre will certainly have a major impact in the HIV vaccine field. This project adds to the 10 new research projects on HIV/Aids that the EU will finance this year."