First Human Tests of Hepatitis C Vaccine Begin

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Blood samples will be taken periodically from the volunteers getting the vaccine to test for antibody and immune cell levels, Belshe says. If those responses are satisfactory, the next step will be a larger study, involving several hundred healthy volunteers, to get broader measures of safety and immune system response. A trial of the vaccine's effectiveness in protecting against hepatitis C infection would begin only if that study succeeds, he says.

Candidates for the effectiveness trial would be persons at high risk of hepatitis C infection, such as health-care workers and drug users who might share infected needles, Belshe says. Changes in the vaccine are expected before such a trial would begin.

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"This vaccine is not expected to be the final vaccine," Belshe says. "But it is an important step along the way."

He hopes the hepatitis C vaccine program will follow the path of an earlier program that produced an effective vaccine against the hepatitis B virus. "That program also started with safety tests on healthy individuals, then moved to trials with people at high risk. "The vaccine was so effective and so safe that it now is used routinely," Belshe says.

"This is really the first candidate for a hepatitis C vaccine for humans in the United States," says Di Bisceglie. "We have many steps to go before we have a successful vaccine."

More information

Learn about hepatitis C at the Washington State Department of Health (www.doh.wa.gov) or the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( www.cdc.gov).

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