Kalam calls for indiginous anti-HIV vaccine

Rohtak, May 25 (UNI) Expressing concern over high incidence of HIV cases in the country, President A P J Abdul Kalam today called upon the scientific community to develop an indiginous anti-HIV vaccine by 2010.

''Today in our country, all age groups put together have an incidence of 5.7 million HIV cases. As many as 163 out of 611 districts in the country have a high proportion of HIV cases,'' Dr Kalam said while addressing the Convocation of Pt B D Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (BDSPGIMS), Rohtak.

Apart from the HIV control protocol, he said the most important mission for the country today was the prevention of the spread of HIV further.

''There is no other way other than developing and leading to production of an effective anti-HIV vaccine,'' he said.

Calling for early completion of the ongoing research on two vaccine programmes, Dr Kalam said it was also essential to take up a third fully indigenous anti-HIV programme as a collaborative work between educational institutions like PGI Rohtak, research laboratories and traditional medicine practitioners.

''Nationally, the anti HIV vaccine is a very vital requirement. We have to launch time-bound programme.

Atleast one anti HIV vaccine has to come in before 2010,'' he added.

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