Gates Gives Booster Shot to AIDS Vaccines

At the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates announced that his foundation has awarded the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) a five-year, $100 million grant to begin clinical trials of a new vaccine developed to fight an HIV strain that is prevalent in Kenya. Based out of New York, the nonprofit IAVI seeks to have a vaccine ready by 2007. The Gates initiative came as a result of a meeting with IAVI chief Seth Berkley in 1998. Berkley, a long-time advocate for an HIV vaccine, conceived a plan he called "social venture capital" that, in other words, meant that IAVI would award drug companies the rights to produce and sell any vaccines they help develop, but only if the companies promise to distribute the vaccines to developing nations at reasonable prices. Gates' donation to IAVI gave the drug companies the market incentive they demanded in return for producing the vaccine and making it affordable for developing nations and also gave the nonprofit organization the jolt needed to continue with its quest to complete the testing of the vaccine. Research teams from Oxford University in Britain and the University of Nairobi in Kenya have been developing a vaccine against HIV-1 type A, the most predominant strain of the virus in Kenya.

Other CDC News for February 12, 2001
Gates Gives Booster Shot to AIDS Vaccines Brazil May Flout Trade Laws to Keep AIDS Drugs Free for Patients Roche Open to Discuss Patent Rights of AIDS Drug With Brazil Advertisement Charity Pleads for Cheap AIDS Drugs Patents	Undeterred by a Monster; Secrecy and Stigma Keep AIDS Risk High for Gay Black Men Protein in Placentas Said to Block AIDS Vatican to Give $475,000 to Uganda's AIDS Orphans Thousands Petition to Have AIDS-Awareness Classes in Schools