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June 5, 2002

INTERNATIONAL IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"South Africa: A $233m Africa HIV/AIDS Vaccine Drive Launched" Africa News Service (www.allafrica.com) (06/04/02)

The African AIDS Vaccine Program has launched an effort to raise $233 million to help come up with a plan of action for the next seven years.  Participants at the program's first forum, being held this week in Cape Town, South Africa, heard that African vaccine research receives just a small portion, about 2 percent, of the world's resources being directed to AIDS vaccine research. An experimental HIV vaccine developed in South Africa may begin safety trials in Gauteng and Durban later this year; however, William Makgoba, head of the Medical Research Council and chairman of the African AIDS Vaccine Program, noted that they were still waiting for approval from South Africa's Medicines Control Council and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  The vaccine uses Venezuelan equine encephalitis as the carrier and also uses proteins from HIV strains that are prevalent in South Africa.

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