Johannesburg - There will be new diseases in future for which there aren’t any vaccines - and globally - countries need to be able to anticipate potential diseases and prepare their health systems.
These were some of the biggest lessons Professor Helen Rees, executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, said the global health community had learnt from recent outbreaks such as the Ebola virus in West Africa and the Zika virus in South and Central America.
Rees was speaking on the first day of the Global Vaccines and Immunisation Research Forum in Sandtonon Tuesday.
It is the first time the event has been held in Africa.
The Forum is co-hosted by the World Health Organisation, the UN’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, in collaboration with South Africa’s Health Department.
Leading researchers gave updates on critical vaccine research in the fields of HIV, TB and malaria, as well as shared insights on local and international research progress.
Rees said what was also learnt from the two outbreaks was the need to prepare communities for the diseases, so that they understood the need for clinical trials. And as a support structure to research, the health systems of countries also needed to be strengthened.
“We have a need in Africa for research because we still have the most challenges. We can do clinical trials in our setting but we need more funding to run trials. And with strong support from African governments, we can have the best vaccines in the world, but we need a place to put them and use them,” she pointed out.
Professor Glenda Gray, president of the South African Medical Research Council, said there were three HIV vaccine studies over the next five years in southern Africa that they were excited about, which would hopefully provide efficacy and understanding of which vaccines work and which don’t.
“Firstly, we’re doing a study on a neutralising antibody vaccine in which we will be working with women in sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas and infusing them with antibodies known to neutralise nearly 90 percent of HIV strains.
“In the second study, we will be taking in what we’ve learnt from the RVI144 study in Thailand, in which 16 000 volunteers, one year after vaccination, showed that the vaccine had 60 percent efficacy - but that waned over time to 30 percent. We’ll be looking at whether boosting the dose increases efficacy, and if we’re lucky, we’ll start in November.
“And in the third study, we will be looking into global approaches such as the Janssen HIV vaccine, which will start early next year, Gray said.
Lewis Schrager, vice-president of scientific affairs at global non-profit biotech company Aeras, said promising research was being done on a possible replacement of the BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guerin) vaccine used against TB in babies and children.
There had been a global shortage of the vaccine, leading to shortages in clinics and hospitals. “It is very difficult to grow the vaccine, making it hard to produce in high volumes,” he explained.
The Star