Russian HIV vaccine capable of generating antibodies - Vector Center
MOSCOW. Dec 18 (Interfax) - The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine developed by the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) is capable of generating antibodies, which is proven by 100% of volunteers participating in phase 1 of clinical trials, Vector told Interfax on Friday.
"HIV-specific antibodies and cytotoxic T lymphocyte were detected in 100% of volunteers, while antibodies neutralizing HIV pseudo-viruses were found in the system of 80% of volunteers," Vector said.
Phase 1 of clinical trials of the CombiVICHvac vaccine was held in 2011, and confirmed that "the vaccine is safe, does not have side-effects, and induces an HIV-specific humoral and cell response," it said
Now Vector has developed an improved vaccine, CombiVICHvac-Novo, on the basis of CombiVICHvac. The efficacy of the HIV vaccine will be assessed in further clinical trials.
Rospotrebnadzor head Anna Popova announced on December 1 that Russia had designed an HIV vaccine.
According to the State Drug Register, clinical trials of the new CombiVICHvac vaccine were permitted in 2013, and they will continue until the end of 2021.
The trials involving 240 volunteers are being held at a medical center of the Federal Medical Biological Agency and an infectious diseases center; both establishments are situated in the Novosibirsk region.
The HIV/AIDS prophylactic vaccine is polyeptopic, which means it contains small fragments of the main viral proteins highly conserved for the 3 subtypes of HIV-1 (A, B, and C).
"It's an advantage of polyeptopic vaccines that they include fragments of viral proteins necessary for the creation of specific immunity and do not contain full-sized virus structures, which could serve as pathogenic factors and/or inhibit the formation of protective immunity, or stimulate the development of autoimmune reactions," Vector said.
The activity of antibodies in Vector's new HIV vaccine is ten times higher than in the original vaccine, it said.
"It will be necessary to hold clinical trials and to register the vaccine in the Russian Federation in order to finalize the CombiVICHvac vaccine development process," Vector said.