FIRST TRIAL OF HIV VACCINE BEGINS IN THAILAND

BANGKOK, March 24 (Reuters) - Clinical trials of an HIV vaccine began in
Thailand on Wednesday with six volunteers receiving the first of seven
shots they will get over the next year.

The six volunteers, all intravenous drug users, were the first of 2,500
people in the country to take part in the three-year trials of AIDSVAX B/E,
officials said. The volunteers are HIV-negative but deemed to have a
high-risk of contracting the virus which leads to AIDS.

Half of the volunteers will receive the vaccine and the other half a
placebo. The rate of HIV infection in the two groups will by compared at
the end of the trial.

Thai officials estimate about six percent of the country's intravenous drug
users contract HIV each year. No estimates were available for the total
number of drug users in the country.

The vaccine has been developed by U.S. drug firm VaxGen Inc and has been
formulated to act against the strain of HIV found in Thailand and the rest
of Asia and the Pacific Rim.

The company says the Thai programme is the first efficacy trial of a
preventive vaccine against HIV outside of North America.

A similar vaccine, developed to fight a different HIV strain, began trials
in the United States last June.

Kajit Choopanya, the doctor in charge of the project, said Thailand had
been selected for the trial because the B/E HIV strain was still spreading
through the country.

Thailand's Public Health Ministry estimates more than 800,000 of Thailand's
60 million people are infected with HIV.

"The B/E type virus is found here and if the VaxGen vaccine can create
immunity in humans then we can solve the whole problem," Kajit said.

He said the vaccine had little or no side effects.

"I am confident there will be no side effects. If there were to be one it
would be a small reaction," he said.

The volunteers will receive another shot in one month and then at
three-month intervals over a year, followed by two years of monitoring. The
volunteers will have regular blood tests, he said.

"I am proud that the project has picked me as one of the volunteers because
I believe the trial could bring great benefit to mankind in the future,"
said one 27-year-old man after his first shot. The man has injected heroin
for eight years and is undergoing methadone treatment in a government
clinic.