Australians claim breakthrough in A.I.D.S. vaccine

Press, 17 December 1986, Page 12

Australians claim breakthrough in A.I.D.S. vaccine

By

ROBERT LOWE,

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney An Australian-funded research group says it has made a breakthrough in the fight against A.I.D.S. and may be only 12 months away from producing an effective vaccine. Perth-based Ivanhoe Gold, Ltd, which is backing the research at Birmingham University in Britain, said the group had developed a disinfectant able to kill the A.I.D.S. virus, according to a report in the Sydney Daily Telegraph. The chairman of Ivanhoe Mr Russell Smith, said the group had just received certification for the disinfectant’s effectiveness from the Louis Pasteur Institute in Paris.

He said the group believed it was only a year

away from producing an A.I.D.S. vaccine. The “Telegraph” said Ivanhoe announced recently that it would sell its mining interests to concentrate on medical research.

The company, which is changing its name to Medical Research International Ltd, said it would spend sAust2 million ($2.6 million) over the next 18 months to seek a vaccine against A.I.D.S.

Mr Smith said the disinfectant was developed as part of the research programme into an effective vaccine.

The team believed it needed an effective means of keeping the laboratory sterile if it was going to work with a dangerous virus.

It developed a non-toxic product that not only would keep hospitals free from the A.I.D.S. virus,

but also, as a side effect, killed the deadly bacteria golden staph. “But what really has us excited is the work they are now doing on the vaccine,” Mr Smith said. “They think they can develop it in 12 months, or at least know how to go about it in that time.” Mr Smith said that the group was led by British researchers, Dr Alexander Buchan and Dr Gordon Skinner, who were using knowledge gained from their work on a herpes vaccine now being tested in the United States. However, the chairman of the National A.I.D.S. Task Force in Australia, Professor David Penington, said only time would tell whether a breakthrough had been made. “A number of research laboratories are doing the same thing,” he said.