IAVI launched its first vaccine development partnership in 1998 with the Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative (KAVI). We have since begun a second research collaboration with the Center for Geographic Medicine – Coast, in Kilifi, and opened a regional office in Nairobi that oversees IAVI’s activities across East Africa. IAVI‘s partners have, with its support, conducted five HIV vaccine clinical trials and seven epidemiology studies.

To cultivate broad support for the AIDS vaccine program, IAVI has also partnered with civic organizations from across Kenya, systematically spreading the word about why AIDS vaccines are needed and how they are developed. We have, beyond that, worked with Kenyan policymakers to ensure an efficient and ethically conducted program of vaccine development.

We collaborate with the following research centers in Kenya:

• Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative: We have partnered with KAVI’s flagship site at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), in Nairobi, to run three Phase I and two Phase II clinical trials on two candidate HIV vaccines.
• KAVI-Kangemi: With our support, KAVI began developing in 2003 a research center in Kangemi—an informal settlement in Nairobi—for large scale vaccine trials in populations. Research done through this initiative has established the prevalence and incidence of HIV in sub-populations of Kangemi, explored the early clinical course of infection and established laboratory reference ranges for uninfected people in the area—information that will be crucial to screening and monitoring the health of future trial volunteers.
• Center for Geographic Medicine Research–Coast (CGMRC): The center began partnering with IAVI in 2003, and is affiliated with the Kenya Medical Research Institute. It has conducted surveys of HIV incidence and prevalence in the coastal cities of Kilifi and Mtwapa, and is another center that is being prepared for large scale vaccine trials. It has also conducted studies on the course of early HIV infection, and helped establish laboratory reference ranges for healthy people in the area. CGMR-C has also conducted behavioral research with their cohort.

BUILDING TECHNICAL CAPACITY

Because vaccine development is a long-term enterprise, IAVI stresses the development of technical capacity in countries where it conducts vaccine trials.

We support, among other things, the construction of state-of-the-art laboratories and clinical facilities. We have done so at all collaborating research centers in Kenya.

We have also supported the training of local technicians and scientists. Thanks to such training, done both on site and at IAVI’s Core Lab in London, KAVI-KNH was among the first laboratories in Africa to win accreditation under the stringent Good Clinical Laboratory Practice (GCLP) scheme.

We have also helped to train researchers to meet the requirements of Good Clinical Practice (GCP).

Top of Page
 

SUPPORTING TRIALS

IAVI is committed to ensuring that the clinical trials in which it participates are conducted at the highest of standards.

We work hard to ensure that those who volunteer for trials receive high quality health services. These efforts include training the staff at research centers to provide effective voluntary testing and counseling (VCT) services, establishing referral networks for people who test positive for HIV, and the provision of healthcare and family planning services for study volunteers.

In areas where referral networks were inadequate, IAVI has helped strengthen crucial facilities. In Kilifi, we constructed a family-clinic to provide antiretroviral therapy for HIV-positive people. In Mtwapa, we have built a drop-in center where potential volunteers can learn more about IAVI-sponsored trials and receive free counseling and social support services.

We assess the quality of services provided at the trial centers in terms of volunteer satisfaction, which is determined via exit interviews. We have instituted systematic quality improvement processes at KAVI-KNH, KAVI-Kangemi and CGMRC

IAVI-affiliated research centers in Kenya also run a formal Counseling Supervision program to improve the effectiveness and job satisfaction of staff counselors and to identify areas for staff development.

Finally, we have developed a curriculum to train site staff to take gender-related issues into account in conducting AIDS vaccine research. This training inculcates sensitivity to the needs and concerns of women—and other especially vulnerable groups—and so bolsters the recruitment and retention of volunteers, and ensures the ethical conduct of clinical trials. 

REACHING OUT

The AIDS vaccine effort would not be sustainable without the widespread support of communities where clinical trials are conducted.

IAVI launched in 2003 an Expanded Community Outreach (ECO) Program in Kenya to strengthen support for AIDS vaccine research.

ECO has in collaboration with the Kenya AIDS NGO Consortium (KANCO) established a network of civil society organizations to help disseminate accurate information about AIDS vaccines across the country. A "train the trainers" program launched by IAVI amplifies such messages by preparing select members of this network to train other NGO members to inform their communities about the development of AIDS vaccines.

We have also run, with our partners, several workshops to provide accurate information about AIDS vaccine trials to Kenyan journalists, and have similarly briefed Kenyan Members of Parliament.

As part of our outreach and advocacy efforts, we have also worked with our research partners to train "peer leaders" to educate their communities about HIV prevention and AIDS vaccine development. 
 

SUSTAINING POLITICAL SUPPORT

High-level political support and sound policy are also essential to the sustainability of the AIDS vaccine effort. So, as it does elsewhere, IAVI systematically cultivates and sustains such support in Kenya.

As a key member of the national HIV/AIDS Vaccine Sub-Committee assembled by the Kenyan Ministry of Health, IAVI played a major role in formulating Kenya’s National Guidelines on AIDS Vaccine Development, which were put into effect in 2005.

Two years later, IAVI, KAVI and the Futures Institute began working with the National AIDS Control Council and the Kenya HIV and AIDS Research Coordinating Mechanism to estimate the impact of partially effective AIDS vaccines. To ensure that science continues to play a central role in the formulation of AIDS vaccine policy, IAVI will—with technical support from the Futures Institute—train Kenyan researchers on this epidemiological model.   
 

ADVOCACY

IAVI has worked closely with the Kenyan government as part of its Global Political Advocacy Initiative. Such efforts have supported Kenya’s leadership in global advocacy for AIDS vaccines. Its proposal, for instance, that Commonwealth nations give high priority to the swift development of an AIDS vaccine was endorsed by all attendees of the Commonwealth Health Ministers’ meeting in Geneva in 2007.