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Trials for AIDS vaccine designed for Africa start in Nairobi

The first AIDS vaccine designed specifically for Africa has entered clinical trials in Nairobi after an ok from the government of Kenya.

Although more than twenty-five vaccine candidates have been tested in humans, this new vaccine is the first one designed especially for Africa where the AIDS epidemic is the highest.  The vaccine is based upon subtype A of HIV, the most common strain in East Africa, and will be tested in a new, state of the art research facility at the University of Nairobi, according to the African Eye News Service.

In Kenya, there are 500 new HIV infections each day.  Dr. Seth Berkley, president and CEO of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) stressed the urgency of those trials which will be conducted, according to Kenyan officials, under rigorous safety and ethical protocols.

The vaccine is supposed to stimulate cellular immune responses to HIV, rather than stimulating antibodies formation.  This follows extensive studies of some sex workers in Nairobi who, despite frequent exposure to HIV, have resisted infection over many years.

The vaccine is the product of a partnership between IAVI, the Medical Council's Human Immunology Unit at Oxford University in the United Kingdom and the University of Nairobi.  All existing and future patents covering the vaccine candidate will be owned jointly by the three partners who will make sure that other developing countries have access to it, according to news dispatch of African Eye News Service

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U.N. Secretary-General Annan Called On African Leaders To Fight AIDS

The Secretary-General told a conference in the Ethiopian capital on Dec. 7, 2000 that the world and the African leaders in particular had been too slow to respond to the epidemic that has already decimated about 15 million people in sub-Saharan Africa and infected another 25 million.

"In the face of such multiple burdens, our response must be comprehensive - a war on many fronts.  We need a complete social mobilization against AIDS," Annan told the conference of African government officials, U.N. agencies and private charities.

He said African governments must make sure the money that the world was ready to throw into the AIDS fight is well spent. 

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SOUTH AFRICA: Cholera Death Toll is rising

JOHANNESBURG,  - One more person died from a cholera epidemic gripping South Africa, bringing the total number of deaths since the outbreak of the disease to 73, health authorities said.

The health department in eastern KwaZulu-Natal province, the center of the epidemic, said 852 new cases had been reported in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 25,814 since the outbreak began in the country's most populous region in August 2000.

The department said it could not rule out the spread of the disease to other areas, adding the high level of new infections was unlikely to drop over the "cholera season" - February and March.

The disease has already spread to the industrial heartland of Johannesburg with one death reported last week in the sprawling township of Tembisa.

The World Health Organization said recently that it was planning to send a full-time expert to South Africa for six months to help contain the epidemic.

Cholera has also been reported elsewhere in southern Africa, including Swaziland, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
(Reuters News)

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Polio Outbreak in Caribbean Alarms Health Experts, Post Writes

Washington, Jan. 1, 2001 (Bloomberg) -- Health experts are concerned by an outbreak of polio in the Caribbean that appears to be caused by a new strain of the virus that originated in oral polio vaccine, the Washington Post reported. 

There have been 45 cases of polio or suspected polio reported in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti since July, the paper said. The last known case in the Americas had occurred in Peru in 1991. 

The live polio vaccine works by producing a controlled infection that stimulates a person's immune system to protect against an attack of a ``wild'' polio virus. However, the vaccine also can mutate as it replicates a billionfold in the human intestine, the paper said. 

Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control believe the new strain mutated from a vial of vaccine about two years ago and has been dormant in the population of the two countries on the island of Hispaniola. Only about 30 percent of infants and children in neighborhoods affected by the outbreak had up-to-date immunizations, the Post said. 

Some 20 countries still have outbreaks of polio, historically the leading cause of paralysis in children, the paper said. About 10 million to 20 million people are living with effects of the disease. Before polio vaccine became available, 350,000 cases occurred each year. 

Source: Bloomberg News

Allabh Ed. Note:  People of Africa and Caribbean countries have always been concerned about vaccine experimentations and trials done in their countries, alleging those products cause at times more harm than good.  This recent polio outbreak caused by oral polio vaccine may come to reinforce their fear and mistrust of those products generally developed in the industrialized countries.  The World Health Organization might want to take a closer look at this problem (not the first) which can slow the effort of scientists who would like to see the poorer countries freed of infectious diseases - like polio - through appropriate and universal immunization programs

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Race Matters:  The Healthcare Divide

The above is the title of an article written by Sharon McDonnel who gave an overview of the health disparities existing between African Americans and Whites in the United States.

The article published by CBSHealthWatch on the Internet discussed not only the different negative health indicators impacting minorities but also addresses "differences in attitudes toward healthcare -- and even toward diagnosis and treatment" between minorities and whites."

Louis Sullivan, MD, president of Morehouse - an African-American medical school - and former US Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bush was quoted in the article as saying that low income people of any race "lacking understanding of the value of early therapy in curing or improving a condition, and lacking trust in the healthcare system, { they} tend to place faith in a 'higher being' or alternative therapist." 

But lack of money and different beliefs don't explain everything. "There are several things you see once you remove the money issue. There is still bias in the healthcare system, which may be unconscious," Dr. Sullivan adds.

Without blaming outright racism, another health expert quoted in the article said that "race and socioeconomic status affect physicians' perceptions of their patients."

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