AIDS Vaccine Likely Still a Decade Off, Doctor Says

Important unanswered questions remain in the development of a broadly effective AIDS vaccine, which could be a decade or more away, a top AIDS researcher said Friday.

“Do I think in five years we are going to have a vaccine that is going to prevent AIDS? Probably not,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told the President’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

He said clinical trials are underway on a vaccine that seems to have at least a partial effect, and “some global health good could come of that.”

In countries with high rates of AIDS infection, a vaccine of even modest effectiveness can have an effect, he said.

Last month, researchers said at an AIDS conference that a new vaccine is showing promise in early testing among humans, but they cautioned they are still years away from proving that it works.

The approach, called prime-boost, is highly effective in monkeys and early results indicate the same could be true in people.

“There are still a lot of important unanswered questions,” Fauci said.

Experts believe a vaccine is the only way to stop the worldwide AIDS epidemic, which has killed 20 million people and infected 40 million more.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, outlined his agency’s AIDS research for the panel.

Asked if he thought an eventual AIDS vaccine would be a onetime injection or would need annual repeats like the flu vaccine, he indicated that periodic boosters probably will be needed.

Earlier, Hank McKinnell, head of the drug company Pfizer Inc., announced his company is freezing the price of Viracept, a widely used AIDS treatment.

He said Pfizer will not raise the price of Viracept for two years. Pfizer’s wholesale price for the drug is $2.02 per tablet; the dosage is one tablet twice a day.