View All Abstracts for Session 51
284 Russian AIDS Vaccine Initiative: Development of Infrastructure for HIV Vaccine in Russia
A. P. Kozlov
Biomedical Ctr., St. Petersburg, Russia
The Russian AIDS Vaccine Initiative started in 1994 in St. Petersburg. A meeting “Concept of the National Policy in the Field of HIV/AIDS” stated in its resolution the necessity to launch the national HIV vaccine project. At first this idea met with a resistance from a part of the medical establishment, which considered the development of HIV vaccine as an unfeasible task. Only in 1997, after the G8 summit in Denver, did Russia start the first official HIV vaccine project. The project was funded through the Ministry of Science and Technologies as a part of the larger program “Vaccines of New Generation.” A considerable work in the Parliament and the Government of Russia preceded the final acceptance of the concept of HIV vaccine at the highest national political level. The Russian HIV vaccine project has played an important role in consolidating the efforts that were previously scattered in many different research institutions in Russia. The major achievements of the project in 1997(2001 include cloning and sequencing of a complete genome of the local isolate of subtype A HIV-1; creation of the reagent program that includes the collection of the national HIV isolates and the bank of HIV-positive sera; the development of several HIV vaccine candidates including DNA vaccine and Salmonella-vectored vaccine; and studies of vaccine candidates in animals. There are plans to start Phase I HIV vaccine trials in humans in 2002.
Besides the Russian HIV vaccine project, the Russian HIV vaccine initiative includes 2 more arms. One is the Association against HIV/AIDS with its Annual International Conference “AIDS, Cancer and Related Problems”. This conference undertook the responsibility for working out the ideology of HIV vaccine development in Russia and has been carrying this responsibility since 1995. An important aspect of this activity is ethical and community issues of the future vaccine trials, the work on creating cohorts of IDU, the major group at risk for HIV infection in Russia.
The third arm of the Russian AIDS vaccine initiative is international projects. Important links have been established with OAR, NIAID, NIDA, Fogarty International Center, and several US universities. The HPTN site has been established in St. Petersburg. The objective is to make Russia an active member of international efforts for HIV vaccine development.
Contact Author about this Abstract
