TANZANIA: Clinical trials on HIV/AIDS vaccine to start in March 2006

DAR ES SALAAM, 5 December 2005 (PlusNews) - Tanzania will start clinical trials of an HIV/AIDS vaccine in March 2006, the head of a local university announced in Dar es Salaam on Saturday.

"This is taking place after successful trials were done in Sweden to determine any side effects," said Kisali Pallangyo, the principal of the Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences (MUCHS) in Dar es Salaam.

MUCHS, which is a university teaching hospital, will conduct the trials but only in Dar es Salaam.

Speaking at the college's graduation ceremony Pallangyo, who is a professor of medicine, said the clinical trials of the vaccination were being supported by the Swedish International Development Agency and the European Union.

"This is not a guaranteed vaccine and people should not take the HIV/AIDS problem lightly believing a medical solution has now been struck," he said.

He said a "preventive vaccine" was not expected before 2011. The vaccine code named DNA-MVA, he said, was developed by researchers at the Swedish Institute of Infectious Disease Control. Studies on it started in 1994.