Doctors at the Kenya Aids Vaccine Initiative (KAVI) are conducting a study on the vaccine that is billed to have the most advanced vaccine design ever tested. If the vaccine, known as Modified Vaccine Ankara (MVA), is proved to be effective in subsequent clinical trials, it is going to be given to all children after birth, the same way infants are given anti-tuberculosis vaccines at birth. According to Prof Walter Jaoko, the vaccine’s principal investigator, no adverse reaction has been recorded since the first baby got the vaccine.
Forty infants have so far been involved in the Aids vaccine trials, which started two months ago, and the results of the trials are expected in June 2012. Each baby will be followed for one year from the date of vaccination to monitor their immune response upon introduction of the vaccine. This response is measured by looking at the cellular immune response specific to HIV. This is where cells of the immune system kill cells that have been infected.
“This is a very delicate study and the volunteer is a person who cannot consent on his or her own. That is why we insist both parents consent to the trial to pre-empt future complications with one parent, especially the father, dissociating himself from the trials,” explained Prof Jaoko, who is also the acting dean at the University of Nairobi’s School of Medicine.
Uganda was one of the first countries in Africa to carry out an Aids vaccine trial in babies. Although the vaccine was found to be safe, it failed to generate a sufficient amount of immune response.
A number of studies done in America, Asia and Europe have shown some encouraging responses in infants who received an HIV vaccine, but not to the degree of response seen in adults. One of the reasons for this is infants’ rapidly developing immune system.
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