Bill Gates: Efforts to develop HIV vaccines

Billionaire couple Bill Gates
(Photo: jancipolla)

Charity Foundation Bill and Melinda Gates of billionaire couple Bill Gates announced that he spent $ 287 million to create a network of international research teams to be able to come up with steps to develop an effective vaccine. anti-rirus HIV.

It has been 25 years since the virus was identified; and during this time, scientists struggled to find a way to develop an effective vaccine to prevent deadly viruses.

Dozens of trials of potential human vaccines in laboratories have been done but are not successful because the virus has the ability to genetically modify and it attacks the body's immune system - the system The vaccine aims to create a mechanism for eliminating infection.

Billionaire Bill Gates and his children see the doctor for HIV treatment for children (Photo: businessweek) Now, the Gates Foundation hopes that the money they spend will help coordinate large-scale experimental projects that can solve big problems in science.

This new program will gather 165 researchers from 19 countries to pursue new strategies.

Among the funding projects there is a research program on isolating human and animal antibodies to see if they can neutralize HIV.

There is also a project that tries to find ways to use smallpox-related viruses to see if they can become vaccines.

Gates Foundation said it also developed global access plans to ensure that any findings from the studies would be accessible and affordable for developing countries.

Each year, nearly 700 million dollars are spent on developing HIV vaccines.

However, the researchers say that the amount is only half that necessary to achieve the goal of producing HIV-resistant vaccines.