IHVN Partners WHO in Search of HIV Vaccine for W/Africa

Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja

The Institute of Human Virology (IHVN) has said it is currently working with the World Health Organization and other international agencies.
The Institute said that it is also spearheading other research interventions that will address challenges posed by infectious disease outbreak in the country.

IHVN is funded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

It also ensures prompt access to high-quality, patient-centered prevention and treatment through public-private sector partnership to address tuberculosis, active TB case-finding efforts and Community TB testing.

Chief Executive Officer of IHVN, Dr. Patrick Dakum who spoke yesterday during an interactive session with journalists to mark the Institute ‘s 20 years anniversary in Abuja said that one of breakthrough research initiatives that the organisation is pursuing is in the area of development of vaccine for the HIV virus.

While given details of research on HIV vaccine, Executive Director of IHVN ‘s International Research Centre of Excellence (IRCE), Prof. Alash’le Abimiku said the initiative is being funded by USAID and is expected to run over a 10-year period.

She said that eight countries in Africa, including Nigeria and South Africa were chosen to participate in the research on HIV vaccine with an initial grant of $34 million.

Out of this amount, Abimiku said that the institute has received $200,000 to help conduct the research on the HIV variant found in West Africa.
Her words: “For 30 years Nigeria has not been involved in Vaccine development but IHVN for the first time has put Nigeria and the whole of West Africa on the map

“The pandemic that is affecting millions of people and we still have s significant number of people who every single day have to take drugs and have to think about its side effects and we said, this needs to end and that IHVN will be part of the solution.”

She said that the institute is presently in the first stage and is embarking on sequencing of the HIV virus that can be found within West Africa and possibly other parts of Africa.

According to her, the idea is to make sure that those sequencing are part of the vaccine construct.

“Once we put that together, we have to test and ensure that it is safe in animal and then we go into small population of individuals that are healthy and find out if it is safe among those individuals.

“We will try to stimulate the right protective immune responses to fight the HIV virus. Once we do that which is phase two and we go into phase three.
“In this phase three, there will be thousands of people that will be administered with Vaccine construct and then you include people that are at risk, that from their behavior they will expose themselves to it”, she said.

She expressed optimism that the outcome of the research will be positive and will provide the much sought remedy against HIV disease.

Speaking further on the milestone attained by the institute in the last 20 years of its existence, Dakum said that IHVN has over the years spearheaded efforts to tackle disease afflictions such as HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and hipatitis, recording significant mileage in reducing the scourge.

He said that the institute played significant role in helping Nigeria to contain the spread of infections during the COVID-19 pandemic by assisting the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is conducting tests, diagnosis and monitoring of the virus spread.

Dakum said the organisation is currently implementing a health Intervention programme known as “Action to Sustain Precision and Integrated HIV Response Towards Epidemic Control” (ASPIRE) by the United States government in Nasarawa, Rivers, Katsina and the Federal Capital Territory.

According to IHVN boss, the programme is providing laboratory testing, diagnosis and tracking of status of people living with HIV, prevention of Mother to child transmission of HIV, Anti-retroviral treatment for adult and children (including pregnant women) to know their status.

On his part, the Chief Operating Officer of IHVN, Dr. Olalekan Mensah, said that the institute has received a total of $300 million from Global Fund and international development agencies from 2010 to date.