TOKYO, Nov 28 (AFP) - Japanese doctors are to carry out an in vitro fertilization (IVF) using sperm taken from an HIV-positive man in a revolutionary technique that reduces the risk of infecting the wife and unborn baby to almost zero.

Doctors at Niigata University's medical department will conduct the procedure for the couple who are in their 30s next month, the first such IVF treatment in Japan, said Megumi Nakano from the Health and Welfare Ministry's AIDS division.

"It is significant. Researchers have been working on this for years and we are going to see the next step, that is, the application of the research to real people," said the government official.

The doctors from Niigata, northern Japan, will perform the IVF using a method jointly developed by Ogikubo Hospital and the medical school of Keio University, both in Tokyo, the official said.

First, the husband's HIV-positive sperm will be put into a centrifuge to separate out the sperm and the virus.

The collected sperm will then be subjected to the so-called "swim-up" method in which doctors remove only active sperm to further filter out the HIV virus.

Once the two methods have been completed, the wife's egg will be fertilized and then implanted in her womb.

Hideji Hanabusa, a doctor at Ogikubo Hospital, said the procedure is close to risk-free.

"Instead of artificial insemination, doctors will use IVF. If they make no technical mistakes, the level of safety is almost 100 percent," he was quoted by the Yomiuri Shimbun as saying.

The ministry's Nakano agreed.

"There is no 100 percent guarantee in the medical world. But the very fact that an ethics committee at Niigata University has approved the method gives us assurance," she said.

"It gives us hope about the method and also gives hope to couples who have given up having babies because of fear of HIV infection."

She added a simpler removal method has been already used in Italy for in vitro fertilization with more than 2,000 people with no reports of infection.

Some Japanese couples even went to Italy for the treatment, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

In Japan, 6,937 people are suffering from full-blown AIDS or are HIV-positive according to health ministry statistics. Of them, 80 percent are men. So far 1,196 have people died, according to the ministry.

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