After South Africa, India is reported
to have world's second largest HIV population. The country
has over 5.1 million people living with HIV/AIDS and
the number is expected to quadruple by 2010. The virus
is spreading into families, infecting mothers and children.
Most alarming trend is the spread of the disease to
villages, with rural India accounting for 59% of infections
compared with 41% in cities. Human trials of vaccines
against different strains of the virus are already being
conducted in the United States, Europe, Africa and South
America. The Indian trial will focus on sub-type C of
the virus, the most common in the country. "It
will be the first test in India of a HIV vaccine on
humans," said Ramesh Paranjape, a deputy director
of the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI) based
in Pune, around 100 miles south of Bombay.
The first phase of the testing of
the vaccine, named Adeno Associated Virus based HIV
sub-type C, will be conducted on 30 volunteers. Scientists
of National AIDS Research Institute will monitor the
volunteers over a period of one year to test for side
effects etc. A good, safe vaccine will help preventive
efforts considerably.
