Six non governmental organizations working in the field of HIV/AIDS prevention in India has formed a National Group on Vaccine Initiatives- (NGVI) to develop and test AIDS Vaccines in India, by increasing community understanding and participation in the AIDS vaccine programme.
The Guwahati based AIDS Prevention Society (APA), Indian Network For People Living With HIV/AIDS (INP+), YRG CARE of Chennai, SOS Foundation of Nasik, The New Delhi Based The Naz Foundation (India) Trust and Freedom Foundation are the members of NGVI.
NGVI envisages to integrate HIV vaccines into existing prevention programmes of NGOs in India, development of a core group of NGOs interested in participating in the vaccine development process, mobilisation of communities by increasing awareness about safe and ethical vaccine development through widespread advocacy and information dissemination, act as point persons between communities and vaccine research team and to build linkages with global non governmental organizations working on AIDS vaccines to share and learn each others experiences.
It may be noted that about 28 vaccine trials are going on in different parts of the world to develop the elusive AIDS vaccine. Recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced $287 million in 16 grants over the next five years to an international network of collaborative research consortia to accelerate creation of a vaccine against HIV and AIDS. In India, the vaccine trials are held in Pune and Chennai.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) recently completed Phase I AIDS vaccine trial at the Tuberculosis Research Centre (TRC) in Chennai and are in the process of starting the second Phase trials. The investigational vaccine candidate, TBC-M4, is to protect people who are not infected with HIV from contracting HIV/AIDS. It consists of a recombinant Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) targeting HIV-1 subtype C, the most predominant HIV subtype in India. Another vaccine candidate named tgAAC09 (recombinant adeno-associated viral vector, rAAV), is also undergoing human trials in Pune, as part of a multi-country AIDS vaccine trial.