HIV/AIDS
APIRADEE TREERUTKUARKUL
RAYONG : The final phase of an Aids vaccine trial in Thailand which is due to be completed next year has showed promising results as the latest results revealed that the number of volunteers who contracted the virus was lower than expected, experts say.
Of the total of 16,402 volunteers recruited for the clinical trial, 7,000 had completed the monitoring period so far. Follow-up tests found the number of volunteers who had contracted HIV/Aids while participating in the programme was lower than the expected 150-200, said chief researcher Supachai Rerks-ngarm.
The clinical trial was launched in October 2003.
Most of the volunteers contracted the virus through unprotected sex. But the low infection rate among the volunteers could not give a complete indication of how effective the vaccine was in Aids prevention.
''It is still too early to say for the time being if the vaccine is effective. However, it is likely the results of the clinical trial will be ready in July 2009,'' he said.
Assistant chief researcher Nakorn Premsri said the programme would be responsible for providing funds for medication for those volunteers who had contracted the virus during their participation in the trial.
Funded by pharmaceutical firms and health advocacy groups in the United States along with the Public Health Ministry, the project faced a stumbling block initially due to a shortage of volunteers. It took a long time before all the planned 16,000 volunteers were recruited.
All volunteers aged 20 to 30 live in the two eastern provinces of Rayong and Chon Buri where the rate of infection among labourers is high.
Half of them have been getting injections of two combination vaccines _ the canary pox vaccine Alvac and a synthesised combination of the B and E sub-types of the Aids virus AidsVax, with the rest getting placebo injections over a one-year period.
Each volunteer would be monitored for at least another three and a half years.
The clinical trial in Thailand was the first time the two vaccines were combined as experts believed that the combination was an effective alternative to HIV/Aids control.
Previously, research projects in Africa had used only one vaccine at a time and the results were unsatisfactory.
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