RIO DE JANEIRO, Nov 6 (AFP) - Brazil has begun testing AIDS vaccines on humans, and the first volunteer, a healthy 38-year-old man, has received his first dose of a vaccine.
Forty volunteers -- healthy men and women aged 18 to 60 years -- have signed up to participate in the study at the Federal University here over the next few months.
"The goal of the tests is to evaluate how the immune system of Brazilians responds to two vaccines -- the French CanaryPox (or Alvac) and the US VaxGen (or Aids Vax) -- and if they present side effects," project coordinator Mauro Schechter said Tuesday.
The 40 volunteers have been divided into three groups: 15 will receive both vaccines, 15 will receive only CanaryPox and ten will receive a placebo.
No one will take only VaxGen because extensive testing on the vaccine has already been conducted in the United States and in Thailand, where more than 3,000 people have already been vaccinated, Schechter said.
"Six months after the last dose, we will analyze the blood of volunteers and will look for traces showing the existence of antibodies against the HIV virus, which would indicate that a person is protected" against AIDS, Schechter said.
The study extends beyond Brazil to Haiti and to Trinidad and Tobago. In both locations another 40 people will be vaccinated.
The National Institutes of Health in the United States is backing the study, directed by researchers at the Federal University of Rio and two US universities.
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