Six volunteers received inoculation with a cocktail of China's
newest experimental AIDS vaccines Saturday in Nanning, capital of
south China's Guangxi
Zhuang Autonomous Region, marking a new development of China's
clinical research of the AIDS vaccines.
After receiving medical check-ups in the Guangxi Disease
Prevention and Control Center, the six volunteers were inoculated
with the vaccines. The volunteers will receive another three
injections in the coming three months, said Chen Jie, vice director
of the center.
The latest round of AIDS vaccine research was launched after a
two-month observation of six groups of volunteers who received
inoculation with the vaccines.
Another group of 21 volunteers will receive inoculation in the
about three months, Chen said, adding that the research report and
the statistics data of first-phase clinical practice are expected
to come out by the end of this year.
To date, a total of 34 volunteers in seven groups have been
injected with the vaccines.
The clinical research of the AIDS vaccines will be phased into
three parts and the first part will last 14 months. The second part
can start only after research result of the first part passes the
expert appraisal by the State Food and Drug Supervision
Administration.
With the first AIDS case reported in 1985, China now has an
estimated 840,000 HIV carriers and AIDS patients, according to the
central government.
In 2004, the number of newly reported AIDS patients and people
who died from the disease continued to rise. The death toll from
AIDS ranked fourth among the country's infectious diseases.
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(Xinhua News Agency May 15, 2005)