HIV prevention trials 'hindered by obstacles'

[NEW DELHI] Developing countries face several challenges to conducting clinical trials on HIV prevention strategies, scientists have cautioned.

Africa is particularly vulnerable to political pressure to halt trials, unpaid and over-burdened ethics committees and delays in obtaining ethical approval, Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA), told a plenary session at an international microbicides conference in Delhi last week (25 February).

Karim cited South Africa's health minister calling for a halt to all HIV prevention trials in the country in November 2007 — following the drug company Merck's decision to stop further phase II trials on an anti-HIV vaccine that was found to be ineffective — as an example of political interference.

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