Without the approval of SDA, any such testing in China is illegal, said Zhang Xiulan, consultant from the Division of Biological Products of the Department of Drug Registration of SDA.

Zhang's words unequivocally put paid to various rumors that both domestic and overseas AIDS vaccines were currently being tested in the world's most populous country.

Foreign research institutes are banned from conducting AIDS vaccine drugs trials on people in China, said Zhang, whose department is the only authority in China eligible to give approval for such tests.

However, foreign pharmaceutical and research institutes may work in conjunction with domestic institutes on research. If, and when, they make a breakthrough, the domestic party, acting on behalf of both sides, is eligible to apply for the necessary official sanction to jointly conduct human trials.

The number of HIV cases in China had reached more than 1 million by the end of 2002, a figure which is increasing at an annual rate of more than 30 percent, according to estimates by the Ministry of Health.

There are about 100,000 people suffering from AIDS, the majority of whom live in poverty and cannot afford the high price of HIV/AIDS medicines.

Researchers from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, together with other institutes, have been organized by the Ministry of Health to establish a special taskforce to strengthen AIDS vaccine research, said Hao Yang.

Hao, a division director from the Disease Control Department of the Ministry of Health, said at present Chinese research into finding an AIDS vaccine is still at "laboratory stage," which means it is still far off the human experimental stage.

In recent years, there has been various news about AIDS vaccine testing being carried out both overseas and in China, but none has been shown to be successful.

The long-awaited result of the first AIDS vaccine tested on people and produced by VaxGen Inc based in the United States, only reduced the rate of HIV infection by 3.8 percent in 5,400 men and women considered at high risk, the company announced in a statement released on February 24.

But a closer analysis of VaxGen's figures showed that of those tested the results were significantly higher among Asians and blacks, with those who received the vaccine having a 67 percent lower rate of infection than those given a placebo.

The company said it hoped this might be a first step towards fighting a virus that has killed 28 million people worldwide and currently infects 40 million.

(China Daily March 26, 2003)