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HIV vaccine trial ready to roll in Thailand

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!

Thursday, December 22, 2005

With first world countries such as Canada reluctant to engage in trials of a vaccine for HIV, Thailand has completed recruitment of volunteers for Phase III of a clinical trial. Over sixteen thousand selected volunteers from a pool of 65,000 will receive the experimental vaccine combination, ALVAC and AIDS Vac.

The trial is concentrated in the provinces of Chon Buri and Rayong and will be monitored over a period of three years to assess the effectiveness of the experimental vaccination.

In Canada questions were raised regarding the safety of conducting wide-scale trials of a vaccine. It was strongly suspected that participants in a trial might be encouraged to engage in unsafe behaviour when, due to the double-blind nature of the clinical trial, they may have received a placebo in place of the vaccine.

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