Today in History-July 11
MP Evan Harris is one of 18 volunteers for HIV vaccine trials2000: Britain pioneers HIV vaccine
England have
The World Aids Conference in South Africa has announced trials for a new
HIV vaccine will begin in Britain.
Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris will be one of 18 healthy volunteers who
will take part in the first toxicity tests.
The MP for Oxford West, Dr Harris, 35, said: "I hope to be a small part of
a process that will deliver something that will save Africa from further
devastation."
The vaccine has been developed by researchers at Oxford and Nairobi
Universities who studied prostitutes in Kenya and found a group who resisted the
disease in spite of daily exposure to it.
If the tests in Oxford are successful, trials will go to Nairobi in October
under the supervision of Professor Job Bwayo and his team.
Professor ofimmunologyat Oxford University Andrew McMichael said: "Our
chances of developing a vaccine are better than 50-50. But the earliest we could
expect a vaccine to be ready would be in seven to 10 years."
There are currently 34 million people in the world suffering from HIV and
70% of them are in Africa.
This is the first time a vaccine has been based on the HIV strain in
Africa. It uses DNA and a wild animal virus similar to that used to combat
smallpox.
The Oxford-Nairobi project is one of 11 similar groups around the world
funded by the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (Iavi). It has received ?4m
from the British Government.
Iavi estimates that three times more than the ?00m currently spent on
research programmes is needed to find a vaccine within ten years.
Vaccination should provide a much cheaper and more effective means of
tackling the pandemic, especially for the Third World which cannot afford HIV
drugs and is barred from developing generic variations.
According to Iavi only 2% of the $20m spent annually on Aids around the
world is for vaccine development.
Skylab I was launched on 14 May 1973
1979: Skylab tumbles back to Earth
Artificially 1969:
The The US space laboratory, Skylab I, plunged to Earth this evening
scattering debris across the southern Indian Ocean and sparsely populated
Western Australia.
All week there has been mounting speculation over where the spacecraft
would come down. It has been in orbit six years - for the past five of those it
has been unoccupied.
Skylab's last signal was recorded at 1611 GMT. Less than an hour later a
tracking station at Ascension Island in the South Atlantic confirmed the solar
panels were beginning to peel off as the craft descended.
The 77.5 ton Skylab could break into as many as 500 pieces, including a
5,100lb (2,310kg) airlock shroud and a 3,900lb (1,767kg) lead safe to protect
film from radiation, which are expected to survive the heat of re-entry into the
earth's atmosphere.
Head of the Nasa task force monitoring Skylab, Richard Smith, said they had
already received reports of hot debris, which had lit up the night sky, from
several points in Western Australia.
'Edge of Cornwall'
Dozens of residents reported seeing debris falling near Kalgoolie, 370
miles (595km) northeast of Perth.
Skylab was launched on 14 May 1973 and was lived in by three teams of
astronauts for periods of up to 84 days as they tested human endurance over long
periods of weightlessness.
While the astronauts were on board they were able to carry out many
valuable scientific experiments including analysis of the sun's activity and how
it affected the Earth.
Skylab was abandoned by the last crew in February 1974, since when
scientists have only had limited control over it. It was supposed to stay in
orbit until the mid-1980s when the new shuttle would have come to its
rescue.
A Skylab task force of computer specialists, engineers, lawyers and public
relations experts has been on standby at various Nasa centres.
It has been very difficult to predict exactly where and when the craft
would finally come down. Only two days ago, a Nasa spokesman had been predicting
it would land near the "edge of Cornwall".
In India, the police in all 22 states were put on full alert and the civil
aviation department was planning to ban flights across the sub-continent during
the crucial hours of re-entry.
Skylab's final orbital path, its 34,981st, passed over the north Pacific,
the northwest tip of the United States, south central Canada, north of Montreal
and Ottawa and the state of Maine.
Vocabulary:
immunology :免疫学
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