Nine months after its launch, China's human trials of an AIDS vaccine are going "smoothly," the Xinhua News Agency reported today. Over the weekend, the last group of 15 Chinese volunteers received the vaccine and reported no side effects in the first 24 hours. "The first 24 hours are a vital period of observation. So far, no volunteers have reported ill reactions. They have entered a relatively stable period for observation," said Chen Jie, deputy-director of the Guangxi regional disease prevention and control center.

Forty-nine people have been inoculated since March 12, when the trials got underway, bringing to an end the first phase of the three-phase trial. Chen said data will be gathered on the volunteers through June 2006; researchers will then decide whether to proceed with the next phase.

Xinhua reported that some 35 human trials of AIDS vaccines are underway worldwide; most are Phase I trials. On Dec. 1, scientists in Sweden said their trial of a DNA vaccine for HIV was going better than expected. Phase I tests among 40 Swedish volunteers have been successfully completed, the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reported. "We have also failed to find any vaccine-related side effects at all," said professor Eric Sandstroem, chief of testing at the institute.

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