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Optimism over AIDS vaccine trial

BANGKOK, JULY 14. Thai and U.S. researchers said today they were hopeful that an AIDS vaccine trial on 16,000 Thai volunteers, the world's largest ever, would succeed despite widespread scepticism.

Since the U.S.-funded study began in September 2003, 3,500 people have received the shots, and 300 have completed the six-month course of immunisations, which involves injecting them with ALVAC as the primary drug followed by AIDSVAX as a booster.

Leading HIV researchers in the U.S. say the $119-million project is a waste of U.S. taxpayers' money because ALVAC and AIDSVAX already have failed in previous trials in which they were used independent of each other. Both are made by U.S. companies. Proponents of the trial say the one-two punch provided the two drugs together might succeed. Volunteers are men and women between the ages of 20 and 30, some of whom are at high risk of infection because they live with HIV-positive people. — AP

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