Centre has earmarked Rs.50 crore to initiate an HIV vaccine development programme which is being carried out jointly by the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute under the Department of Biotechnology and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).


However, sources said the programme has just been initiated and it will take years to come out with a final product. The Rs.50 crore sanctioned is for the initial phase of the programme to accelerate the HIV vaccine discovery research between Gurgaon-based Translational Health Science and Technology Institute and the IAVI.


“The emphasis of this programme is to identify candidate immunogens that elicit broadly neutralizing antibody responses against HIV-1 by establishing an innovative discovery programme employing high throughput technology. The programme is targeted to expand the number of vaccine candidates for testing and enhance the speed with which they can be assayed,’’ a senior official of DBT said.


The programme will engage scientists, build scientific capacity in India towards enhancement of global R&D efforts for HIV vaccine development, strengthen efforts to share and commercialize scientific knowledge and foster inclusive innovation process. The unique industrial-type high-throughput vaccine design, screening and selection processes proposed for this Vaccine Laboratory will be largely facilitated by interdisciplinary interaction and will be driven by the principles of international collaboration, high-quality science and vaccine-oriented applied research, he said.


According to the recent estimates based on HIV Sentinel Surveillance 2008-09, it is estimated that India had approximately 1.2 lakh new HIV infections in 2009 and this number has declined by more than 50 per cent during the last decade.


Recently an initiative by the IAVI has made some progress towards developing a vaccine against HIV. The scientists have isolated the most powerful broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) against HIV so far in a major step towards finding an effective vaccine against the deadly virus. IAVI achieved through a research held jointly with Scripps Research Institute, by blocking HIV infection of cells as much as 10 to 100 times as potently as the previously discovered bNAbs.