Potential Vaccine for HIV

Dr. Chil-Yong Kang, Professor and Researching Virologist at the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry in London has developed the new and unique HIV/AIDS vaccine, SAV001, which has shown promise in animal studies. It has effectively stimulated a strong immune response and has shown no adverse effects in early testing, Kang said. He has reached a pivotal point by obtaining U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to test his vaccine in human clinical trials starting in January 2012. It is the only HIV vaccine in development in Canada and his lab and conference videos are available on YouTube.

Though progress to prolong and enhance the quality of life for persons living with HIV/AIDS continues, a successful vaccine has yet to be tested on humans. Over 34 million people live with HIV globally today, more than 26 million have died since 1981 and over 300 new cases are contracted every hour according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). Africa and Asia are hardest hit by the HIV epidemic, with Sub-Saharan Africa having 68  per cent of HIV cases. Many infected currently receive expensive antiviral treatment to improve their quality of life. Kang, also a philanthropist, said that making his vaccine available to undeveloped countries "was the key for him".  

The HIV/AIDS virus is particularly challenging to work with because of its many form variations and high mutation rate. Previous attempts at an HIV vaccines — which have used one or a combination of a live virus vaccine (purified protein based vaccine), genetic variations of live virus portions (recombinant virus vaccine) or genetic vaccine (DNA vaccine) — have proved unsuccessful. Kang's vaccine is unique in that it is a dead whole HIV-1 virus. He said it was unethical to inject humans with live viruses. The proven dead virus approach is similar to that used in smallpox, polio, influenza, Hepatitis A and rabies vaccines.

"There is no one in the World who now has smallpox," he said concerning the vaccine. Genetically altering the dead HIV virus makes it safe to use under bio-safety level 3 (BSL3) facilities in the US Chemical and radiation treatment kills the virus.  

 Sumagen, Western University's pharmaceutical company has obtained patents to produce the SAV001 vaccine Worldwide in over 70 countries including China, Africa and the US  It is non-pathogenic (does not cause disease) and can now be produced in large quantities for mass distribution.

Three Phases of clinical research are prepared to begin. Phase I is already approved and will consist of assessing vaccine safety in 40 HIV-positive non-symptomatic volunteers over a one-year period starting in January, 2012. Phase II will determine changed immune responses of 600 HIV-negative volunteers with high-risk profiles in year two. Phase III will determine vaccine effectiveness in 6000 HIV negative volunteers also at high risk for contracting HIV. Kang said, if everything goes well, it should take at least five years until its commercially available.

 Dr. Kang is happy and confident with the new vaccine and believes it can potentially prevent millions of global HIV infections. The president of the Canadian Association of HIV Research, Dr. Johnathan Angel, said that there are now more than 100 FDA approved trials of HIV vaccines. There is no proof it works in humans yet.