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USF will study swine flu vaccine and HIV

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By LINDSAY PETERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 29, 2009

TAMPA - University of South Florida researchers plan to study the effects of the swine flu vaccine on HIV-infected children and pregnant women.

It's part of a National Institutes of Health study involving more than 40 sites across the country.

For years, USF has worked with many women and children with HIV disease, said Karen Bruder, USF assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. The work is part of USF's association with another NIH project, known as the International Maternal-Pediatric-Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group, or IMPAACT.

At any given time, IMPAACT researchers are working with 12 or so HIV-infected pregnant women, through Tampa General Hospital's Genesis HealthPark clinic. Bruder is the clinic's medical director.

About 10 of these women will be involved in the first phase of the swine flu study.

"This is a very important population," Bruder said, because the women's immune systems are hampered by two things, their pregnancies and the HIV disease.

Researchers will look at whether these women need higher doses of the vaccine for swine flu, also known as H1N1.

They will also study the vaccine's effect on the babies before and after they are born, looking at whether antibodies to swine flu are transferred to the fetus and whether those antibodies remain in the babies' systems after they are born.

In the second study, several HIV-infected children and young adults will receive the swine flu vaccine. Researchers will look at the vaccine's safety, how well it stimulates the participants' immune responses and how long the protection lasts.

Reporter Lindsay Peterson can be reached at (813) 259-7834.

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