Aids vaccine 'may give protection'

New hopes for an Aids vaccine were raised today with news that scientists have found a treatment which appears to work on monkeys.

Experts from the Medical Research Council of South Africa claim tests have shown that the new vaccine may provide complete protection.

Its president, Malegapuru Makgoba, said there is also hope in the fact that prostitutes in Nairobi and South Africa have stayed HIV negative for years - despite working in a highrisk environment - because they can produce protective immune responses to the virus.

Africa has 70 per cent of the cases of HIV infection in the world.

But Mr Makgoba said further research must be a top priority. Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said: "If we fail to provide the world with an effective HIV vaccine, future generations will judge us harshly because this failure will not be due to lack of ability or resources but to politics," he said.

"Our response to the events of 11 September should not deflect attention from the need to develop a vaccine against the greatest threat ever to humanity from an infectious disease."

Mr Makgoba said his research is promising but advised caution. "Results from studies of candidate vaccines in small animals are invaluable but their applicability to the development of an HIV vaccine in humans may be tenuous."

Further evidence emerged today that the fight against the virus is as much about politics as medicine.

It is said that rivalry and backbiting between two arms of the US government is hampering the global fight against HIV and Aids.