South Africa tests AIDS vaccine

South Africa is launching clinical trials of two AIDS vaccines its researchers developed in collaboration with US experts, a major step for a developing country where political leaders once shocked the world with their unscientific pronouncements about the disease.     

Trials to test the safety in humans of the vaccines begin this month on 36 healthy volunteers, Anthony Mbewu, president of South Africa's government-supported Medical Research Council, said in an interview yesterday. Mbewu's respected organization shepherded the project.     

A trial of 12 volunteers in the United States began earlier this year.     

Mbewu elaborated that the vaccine was designed at the University of Cape Town with technical help from the US National Institutes of Health, which also manufactured the vaccine.     

Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and a leading AIDS researcher, was in South Africa for the launch.     

During nearly 10 years of denial and neglect, South Africa developed a staggering AIDS crisis. Around 5.2 million South Africans were living with HIV last year — the highest number of any country in the world. Young women are hardest hit, with one-third of those aged 20 to 34 infected with the virus.     

In 1999, the ministries of health and of science and technology founded the vaccine initiative and poured 250 million rand into it over nearly 10 years.