Ugandan scientist says ‘Truvada not HIV vaccine’

By Shifa Mwesigye,

Scientists in Uganda have dismissed reports that an HIV vaccine has been found. The report followed the US-based Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the anti-retroviral drug Truvada as a preventive measure against the transmission of HIV.
Prof Pontiano Kaleebu, director of the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, says Truvada is not an HIV vaccine but an anti-retroviral drug.
“No HIV vaccine has yet been discovered. There are, however, ongoing studies and efforts to discover a vaccine,” Kaleebu said.
Truvada has been shown to reduce risk of infection by up to 42 per cent in gay and bisexual men and 75 per in heterosexual couples according to the AIDS Research Alliance. Dr Patrick Ndase, the Ugandan HIV prevention research expert at the University of Washington, says Truvada is an anti-retroviral agent that has been in use for HIV treatment since 2004. It is one of the first line of drugs for HIV treatment in several countries in Africa.
“It most certainly is not a vaccine. The concept studied is the use of an anti-retroviral drug for HIV prevention similar to the approach used for prevention of mother-to-child transmission,” he said.
“There is no vaccine and clearly no clear timeframe can even be put to hopes of ever getting a vaccine against HIV, but the hope is alive.”
The scientists say that Truvada does not offer 100% protection against HIV and may encourage risky behaviour. For Truvada to give some measure of protection, an HIV negative person would have to take it daily, something that is difficult even for people who take part in vaccine and drug trials.
Since it was first detected, HIV/ Aids has killed more than a million Ugandans, with an estimated 2.3 million living with the virus, according to the Uganda AIDS Indicator Survey released this year by the ministry of Health. Only anti-retroviral drugs are available for people living with HIV/Aids but of the 570,000 people eligible, only 320,000 access them.

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Posted by AfricaSTI on June 24, 2012. Filed under Regional, Uganda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry