A key stepping stone towards introducing the first vaccine against the Aids virus was announced yesterday.
The decision by the United States Food and Drug Administration to approve Phase Three trials of the vaccine was described as ''a milestone'' in the fight against Aids.
Phase Three trials are designed to test the effectiveness of a drug and usually involve large numbers of patients.
If the trials prove successful, it will pave the way for the anti-HIV vaccine, Aidsvax, to be licensed and go on the market. The trials should also help the development of other similar drugs.
Inoculations of Aidsvax will begin this month and could involve 5000 volunteers in major cities across America.
The vaccine's creator, the pharmaceutical company VaxGen, hopes to hold a second trial in Thailand later this year.
Mr Derek Bodell, director of the National Aids Trust in Britain, said: ''This is a milestone in the fight against Aids, and also a crucial psychological hurdle.
''With over 16,000 people being infected with HIV every day and over 30 million people now living with the virus (worldwide) an effective vaccine is something the world desperately needs.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article