by Amy Spangler
May 29, 2007

The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation has received a five-year, $9.7-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop and test candidate vaccines to prevent HIV infection in children. The HIV vaccine program supported by the grant will be the first of its kind to support basic research and clinical trials specific to breastfeeding infants.

Pamela W. Barnes, president and CEO of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, unveiled the pediatric vaccine program on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day and praised the Gates Foundation for including children in a global effort to discover an HIV vaccine.

The grant will fund up to eight basic and/or pre-clinical research studies to address critical questions regarding breast milk transmission of HIV and pediatric immunity. The program also will fund up to three Phase I clinical trials to move promising candidate HIV vaccines into pediatric populations.

To date, there have only been two vaccine trials aimed at blocking transmission of the virus from mother-to-child, either during childbirth or through breastfeeding. Researchers have found that an infant population at risk of HIV infection through breastfeeding is uniquely positioned to benefit from a preventative vaccine. An effective vaccine, dosed shortly after birth, would not only protect the child from HIV during the breastfeeding period, but could offer long-term or even life-long immunity from the virus. A protective vaccine would allow HIV-positive mothers to safely breastfeed for an extended period of time, providing babies in resource-limited settings with important nutrition and basic health protections.

According to Barnes, “Vaccinating children has been the key to tackling the world’s deadliest epidemics, and HIV could be the next chapter in that story. It is absolutely vital that we start to include children in HIV vaccine research, or we may miss important discoveries that only pediatric research could reveal. We don’t want to be celebrating the discovery of an HIV vaccine and then stop and realize it’s ineffective or unsafe for children. We need research aimed both at children and adults, and the Gates Foundation is helping make that possible.”