Finally, a vaccine to combat HIV?

Application Of Sanofi Pasteur & VaxGen Vaccine May Be Limited, Say Researchers AN experimental combination of two vaccines from Paris-based Sanofi Pasteur and US-based VaxGen has made significant progress in finding a way to combat the illness, researchers said.      Results of a six-year long phase III clinical trial in Thailand has proved that the combination of Sanofi-Pasteur's ALVAC canary pox vaccine and the failed HIV vaccine AIDSVAX of VaxGen can lower the rate of HIV infection by 31.2%. But its application may be limited and a commercial vaccine may require more time, researchers said.      The HIV vaccine trial was executed by the Thai Ministry of Public Health and included a team of leading Thai and US researchers. The trial was sponsored by the US army and conducted by the Thai Ministry of Public Health. The trial involved 16,000 volunteers.      In a press statement, which was jointly issued by the vaccine makers, Michel DeWilde, senior vice president (research) of Sanofi Pasteur said: "This is the first concrete evidence that a vaccine against HIV is eventually feasible. There is still a lot to be done. These results are significant, but do not provide a definitive answer. On the other hand, they do provide a number of possibilities for exploration and the scientific base for new studies."      The WHO, UNAID and both the vaccine firms feel that results of the combination provide a lot of possibilities for research as well as a new scientific base for studies. "The HIV virus is similar to the cold virus in that the base is unstable and keeps changing. If scientists have managed to isolate a portion of this base which is stable and can work on that it can be very significant for future studies," said a scientist working with an Indian firm, who did not want to be named.      WHO and UNAID said that while no vaccine safety issues were observed in the trial, licenser at this point in time may not be possible solely on the basis of this study's results.