SA to test Thai HIV vaccine

South Africa is one step closer to testing a vaccine for HIV after a local trial of the world's only partially effective Aids jab showed it was safe to use on locals.

Professor Glenda Gray, head of the South African Medical Research Council, announced this at the HIV Research for Prevention conference in Cape Town yesterday.

After 30 years of trying to find a vaccine for HIV, scientists announced success in 2009. The vaccine, named R144, tested in Thailand, had offered people who received it almost 60% protection from the virus for the first year.

After three years, recipients of the vaccine were 31% less likely to get the virus.

Scientists wanted to test the vaccine in South Africa because even 30% to 40% protection against HIV would reduce the rate of new infections, said Gray.

Before a large trial can go ahead next year, researchers needed to show two things. "We had to prove that the vaccine was safe to use on South Africans and that it provoked an immune response," said Gray.

An immune response means the body reacts to the vaccine and starts to fight what it believes is HIV. But an immune response does not mean the vaccine works against disease.

One hundred volunteers in Soweto and Klerksdorp were given the vaccine last year.

"It provoked an immune response equal and in some cases better than in the Thai trial," said Gray.

It was safe to use.

This means a new trial can start in January to test if the vaccine works to prevent HIV. Should this trial be successful, 7000 people will be enrolled from 2016 for one final trial.

The Thai vaccine is being modified to fight against the African strain of the virus.

It will be also strengthened to try to get it to offer protection from HIV for a longer period than the Thai vaccine did. Participants will get a booster vaccine after a year.

It is not expected the vaccine will offer complete protection from the virus, but even if it offers some protection, researchers will try to get it approved by the Medicines Control Council for use and sale. Application for approval is expected to take place in 2019.

Gray said: "If it even offers 50% protection from the virus, I will rejoice. It would be a global game changer."

A vaccine could be used with circumcision , vaginal gels and antiretrovirals in a package to slow the rate of infections down, said Dr Anatoli Kamali from the Ugandan Medical Research Council.