India enters pact with IAVI for AIDS control

New Delhi, Mar 10 (UNI) The government has entered into an agreement with International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) for accelerating the efforts to develop a vaccine to counter HIV.

Minister of state for health and family welfare Panabaka Lakshmi said in the rajya sabha today the National AIDS Research Institute in Pune had initiated phase one clinical trial of a vaccine candidate.

Besides, the ICMR's Tuberculosis Research Centre in Chennai launched the second phase one clinical trial on AIDS last month, she said in a written reply.

In reply to another question, Ms Lakshmi said German scientists have developed a new treatment for HIV which is useful in targeted, mutated strains of AIDS virus that become impervious to drugs.

It is claimed that they have succeeded in blocking multiplication of HIV-1, including those strains of the virus that have developed resistance against all currently available anti-retroviral drugs, she said.

UNI SU JN SP1321