while battles rage between pharmaceutical companies and developing nations for cheaper access to existing drugs against aids, new research is also emerging. Two of the recent developments, one a vaccine that inhibits hiv, other, a therapy that attacks the deadly virus are worth the metion.

A vaccine that does not prevent aids but inhibits deterioration of the condition beyond a limit has been tested successfully on monkeys. Researchers at Merk and Co Inc., a private corporation, have produced the vaccine that is capable of curbing the damaging stages of aids says a report dated April2, 2001 in the Washington Post . During the clinical tests conducted by the company, three monkeys who had been given the vaccine were found normal more than eight months after being infected with a virulent strain of the aids virus. Over the same period, four of six monkeys not given the dose of vaccine died of their infections.

The promising vaccine is fashioned from the virus that causes common cold. A gene from the aids virus was stitched into the common cold virus. Researchers fashioned the vaccine to stimulate only cell-mediated immunity, which is one of the two arms of immune system. With cell-mediated immunity, the body produces cells, known as t-lymphocytes that kill infected cells. Though not capable of preventing infection, cell-mediated immunity can limit the damage that the virus can cause.

The researchers tried out five different vaccines, each containing a gene called