End of the road for Kenya's HIV vaccine efforts

By Arthur Okwemba

It is now official. New efforts to salvage Kenya's Aids vaccine candidate, built around the prostitutes from Majengo, a slum within the city, have failed and the whole initiative will be discontinued.

Although preliminary results publicised last year had indicated no gains, scientists in the project had in an effort to salvage the work decided to give volunteers higher doses of the vaccine– but this has also failed to produce the desired immune responses.

The decision to discontinue the exercise, which has so far cost Sh1 billion, was finally reached after the Oxford University team led by Prof Andrew McMichael, were convinced the vaccine does not yield good results even with higher dosages.

Source:Daily Nation