Chinese-developed AIDS vaccine won government approval to be tested by human bodies Thursday, according to the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) of China.

The compound vaccine consists of DNA vaccine and regrouped virus carrier, said sources with the SFDA.

Chinese scientists began the research by studying domestically popular virus genes in 1996, including the envelope albumen and core albumen of the virus. They found that human body will become immune to AIDS virus after injecting DNA vaccine and regrouped virus carrier in succession.

Researchers attacked a monkey with AIDS virus after injecting the compound vaccine into its body, and found no abnormal reactions occurred.

Human body test, or stage I clinical test, of the compound AIDS vaccine aims to further assess the security of the vaccine, an SFDA official said.

The government will consider whether to launch stage II and stage III tests on the basis of the result of the stage I test.

SFDA officials said that they would accelerate approval process of all kinds of anti-AIDS drugs to help speed up relevant clinical researches.

According to experts, AIDS vaccine is the only solution to stop the wildfire spread of the grievous infectious disease. Currently, even the "cocktail treatment", the most effective measure to deal with AIDS so far, can only stabilize or ease the AIDS symptoms instead of killing the virus in the body.

(Xinhua News Agency November 26, 2004)