Super HIV/AIDS laboratory in Africa

  1. Posted on Friday 17 October 2008 - 05:06
    Sam Banda Junior
    Image of Sam Banda Junior
    Sam Banda Junior, AfricaNews reporter in Blantyre, Malawi Photo: HIV/AIDS activists in South Africa
    A state-of-the-art medical laboratory aimed at finding universal cure to the deadly HIV/AIDS disease has opened in South Africa. The centre would preserve infected cells for decades to give researchers time to study strains of the virus as it mutates. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funds it.
    HIV_AIDS_ACTIVISTS_SOUTH_AFRICA
    The Aids Vaccine Discovery laboratory, according to the country’s local paper - Sunday Times - the laboratory is part of a network across countries where samples of recently transmitted strains of the virus are collected. It is based at the University of Stellenbosch’s Virology Department in Cape Town.

    Head of the local project Corena de Beer said: “We will collect infected blood samples, take out the T-cells which contain the virus, freeze and send them to a repository… in Germany.”

    She added that members of the consortium had different roles varying from finding a vaccine for the disease to collecting blood specimens. She further said that they have partners in the University of Washington, the University of Lund in Sweden, Italy and Geneva.

    De Beer said it was important to keep samples as the virus mutated rapidly. The Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) is an international network of 13 Vaccine Discovery Consortia (VDCs) and five Central Service Facilities (CSFs) applying new technologies, concepts and approaches to the design of safe and effective preventive vaccines against HIV/AIDS.

    This collaborative effort was established in July 2006 and now includes 18 grants totaling $327 million over five years, with additional co-funding provided by the Fraunhofer Society and the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Saarland in Germany, and the Swiss State Secretariat of Education and Research.

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