Gates Foundation gives $9.7 million for research on kids and AIDS

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will give a $9.7 million grant to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation to study ways to prevent HIV/AIDS transmission to children via breast milk.

The money will pay for eight research studies and up to three clinical trials of vaccines that have previously been tested on adults.

Pamela Barnes, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based Glaser Foundation, noted the absence of children in HIV vaccine research even though nearly 14 percent of all new HIV infections are in children who contract the disease from their mothers.

"We don't want to be celebrating the discovery of an HIV vaccine and then stop and realize it's ineffective or unsafe for children," she said in a foundation statement issued this week about the grant. "We need research aimed at both children and adults and the Gates Foundation is helping make that possible."

Jeffrey T. Safrit, program director for research at the Glaser Foundation, commended the Gates Foundation for getting involved in vaccine development for children at a time when nearly every other dollar spent on creating and testing HIV/AIDS vaccines is focused on adults.

If researchers wait until after an adult vaccine is developed, it would take two more years to get it ready for children, said Safrit, an immunologist at the organization's Santa Monica, Calif, office.

Another HIV/AIDS vaccine is currently being tested on infants in Uganda. The Glaser Foundation hopes to test several different vaccines on children in Sub-Saharan Africa. All the vaccines have previously been found to be safe in extensive tests on adults.

Previous efforts to prevent HIV transmission from mothers to their children has focused largely on anti-viral therapy — treatments for women, not their babies — and on getting mothers to switch to formula from breast milk. Neither approach is an effective answer in poor countries where access to medicine and clean water are limited, Safrit said.

The Glaser Foundation has helped pay for 41 studies related to pediatric HIV/AIDS research since 1988. The Gates Foundation grant will significantly expand the smaller foundation's reach, as it is nearly equal to all the money the Glaser Foundation spent on HIV/AIDS research between 1988 and 2007.

The Gates Foundation has spent nearly $500 million on initiatives to prevent the spread of HIV and for research into potential HIV/AIDS vaccines. It also has spent millions of dollars to improve access to childhood vaccines, develop other new vaccines and improve the chances babies will survive beyond their early years.