Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Wednesday June 24 6:13 PM EDT
The vaccine, made by VaxGen Inc., a small biotechnology company in south San Francisco, Calif., will be tested for effectiveness in preventing HIV infection among 5,000 uninfected volunteers in North America.
The vaccine is also being tested in another form among a group of 2, 500 uninfected volunteers in Thailand, where the disease is also rampant. Scientists don't expect the vaccine to succeed, but VaxGen officials say chimpanzees inoculated with it resisted HIV infection. They hope that they will be able to learn from the way in which the vaccine fails and move closer to creating one that works.
The vaccine is supposed to stimulate the body to produce antibodies to gp120, a protein on the outer coat of HIV that plays a critical role in enabling the virus to get inside human cells.
Researchers say trial participants have been warned that the vaccine is only in the trial stages and that they must still avoid engaging in unprotected sex with an HIV-positive partner.
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