STOCKHOLM, Dec 1 (AFP) - An HIV vaccine being developed by Swedish researchers will soon be tested on HIV-negative people in Sweden and will then be tested on people in Tanzania in 2005, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported on Wednesday.
Developped by the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control (SMI), the vaccine corresponds to the strain of HIV that has infected 25 million people in Africa, HIV-1 retrovirus sub-type A, according to Dagens Nyheter.
The vaccine is not aimed at providing immunity from HIV, but rather limiting its development once a person is infected. A preventative vaccine is not expected before 2011.
Forty subjects will be tested in the initial phase I study in Sweden, for which the selection process has already begun.
Some 60 people will then take part in a phase I/II test in Tanzania organised by the Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences in Dar es Salaam.
"In the best of cases, we will start vaccinating in Dar es Salaam already next year," said Eric Sandstroem, chief physician at Soeder hospital in Stockholm which is in charge of the clinical testing.
The phase I and II tests are aimed at making sure that the vaccine has no side-effects and that it prompts the body to develop antibodies. Phase III testing is aimed at determining whether the vaccine actually limits the effects of the virus for those infected.
"It is incredibly important that we develop a vaccine in Africa because other methods of limiting the spread of the disease do not work," Sandstroem said.
AIDS has already killed 23 million people worldwide since it was first discovered more than 20 years ago. Three million people infected with AIDS died in 2004, and more than 40 million people are infected, according to the UNAIDS organisation.
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