Global HIV vaccine closer to reality

October 25, 2013

Global_HIVWashington, Oct 25: Scientists have found that bioinformatically optimised HIV vaccine antigens may help design a global HIV vaccine.

A scientific team led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) conducted the study in monkeys.

"A global HIV vaccine would offer major biomedical and practical advantages over most other HIV vaccine candidates, which are limited to certain regions of the world," said lead author Dan H Barouch, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"To our knowledge, this study represents the first evaluation of the protective efficacy of a candidate global HIV antigen strategy in nonhuman primates," said Barouch.

Researchers demonstrated for the first time that mosaic HIV vaccine antigens can afford partial protection in rhesus monkeys against challenges with a stringent simian-human immunodeficiency virus.

These mosaic vaccine antigens have been developed for optimal immunologic coverage of global HIV diversity.

Barouch and his team studied the immunogenicity of HIV mosaic Env/Gag/Pol antigens administered to monkeys using viral vectors. Env, Gag, and Pol are three major HIV proteins.

After immunisation, the monkeys were repetitively exposed to multiple simian-human immunodeficiency virus challenges and the investigators evaluated the ability of the vaccines to block infection.

Although most animals immunised with the mosaic HIV vaccine became infected by the end of the study, the researchers observed an 87 to 90 per cent reduction in monkeys' probability of becoming infected each time they were exposed to the virus.

In contrast, monkeys that received sham vaccines became infected more quickly.

"These findings indicate that these optimised vaccine antigens can afford partial protection in a stringent animal model," said Barouch.

The investigators found that the immunised monkeys mounted antibody responses against diverse strains of HIV noting, "protection was dependent on several different types of antibody responses, suggesting that the coordinated activity of multiple antibody functions may contribute to protection against difficult-to-neutralise viruses."

The monkeys also mounted cellular immune responses to multiple regions of the virus.

"These data suggest a path forward for the development of a global HIV vaccine and give us hope that such a vaccine might indeed be possible," said Barouch.

"We are planning to advance this HIV vaccine candidate into clinical trials next year," he added. The study was published in the journal Cell.

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Agencies
July 7,2020

India's COVID-19 tally raced past the seven lakh-mark with 22,252 fresh infections on Tuesday, five days after crossing the six lakh post, while the death toll climbed to 20,160 as 467 more people succumbed to the disease, according to the Union health ministry.

With this, the country has recorded over 20,000 cases of the infection for the fifth consecutive day.

India's coronavirus infection caseload stands at 7,19,665, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.

With a steady rise, the number of recoveries stands at 4,39,947, while there are 2,59,557 active cases of coronavirus infection in the country.

"Thus, around 61.13 % of patients have recovered so far," an official said.

The total number of confirmed cases also includes foreigners.

Of the 467 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 204 are from Maharashtra, 61 from Tamil Nadu, 48 from Delhi, 29 from Karnataka, 24 from Uttar Pradesh, 22 from West Bengal, 17 from Gujarat.

Telangana and Haryana reported 11 deaths each; Madhya Pradesh nine; Andhra Pradesh seven; Jammu and Kashmir six; Rajasthan and Punjab five each; Bihar, Kerala and Odisha two each; and Arunachal Pradesh and Jharkhand one each.

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News Network
February 9,2020

Srinagar, Feb 9: Authorities on Sunday snapped mobile internet services in Kashmir as a precautionary measure to prevent any law and order disturbance on the seventh death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru, officials said.

The mobile internet services were suspended early in the morning as the authorities apprehended violence in the valley in view of the bandh call given by separatist outfits, the officials said.

The authorities had restored 2G internet services in Kashmir on January 25, more than five months after snapping all communication facilities in the valley following abrogation of Article 370 on August 5 last year.

Police on Saturday lodged an FIR against the banned Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) for calling a strike on Afzal Guru's death anniversary.

Guru was hanged in 2013 inside Tihar jail for his role in the Parliament attack in December 2001.

Two journalists were summoned by police for reporting the JKLF press release, which had called for strike on Sunday and Tuesday -- the death anniversary of the outfit founder Mohammad Maqbool Bhat.

They were let off after five hours of questioning. Bhat was hanged in 1984 and is buried inside Tihar jail.

Meanwhile, normal life in Kashmir was affected due to the strike, the officials said.

Markets and business establishments remained closed, while public transport was largely off the roads, they said.

There have been no reports of any untoward incident from anywhere in the valley so far, the officials added.

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News Network
March 4,2020

Mar 4: Twenty-one Italian tourists and three Indian tour operators have been sent to an ITBP quarantine facility in Delhi on Tuesday for suspected coronavirus exposure, official sources said.

Health Ministry sources said these foreigners, 13 women and eight men, were in the same group of which an Italian and his wife have tested positive in Rajasthan capital Jaipur.

“His (Italian in Jaipur) condition is stable,” a source said.

Three Indians, who were accompanying this Italian group as tour operators, have also been sent to the ITBP facility in Chhawla area of south-west Delhi, they said.

All these people, staying at a five-star hotel in south Delhi, have been put in “preventive isolation” at the ITBP camp and their samples will be taken on Wednesday, sources said.

The centre already has 112 people, 76 Indians and 36 foreigners, since February 27 after they were evacuated by an IAF plane from Wuhan in China, the epicentre of the coronavirus.

The first samples of these 112 people had tested negative when reports came in last week.

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