China approves human tests of HIV vaccine

China has announced it has approved human testing of a domestically developed HIV vaccine, Xinhua News Agency reports. The State Food and Drug Administration also pledged to "accelerate approval process of all kinds of anti-AIDS drugs to help speed up relevant clinical researches," Xinhua reports. Chinese scientists who have been studying the genetics of HIV since 1996 developed the vaccine, Xinhua reports, citing the drug agency. "Researchers attacked a monkey with [the] AIDS virus after injecting the compound vaccine into its body, and found no abnormal reactions occurred," according to the media report. Phase I testing of the vaccine will be carried out on 30 volunteers ages 18-50. A spokesman for the drug agency cautioned that the experimental vaccine will undergo lengthy testing. "Experiments with this drug don't necessarily mean the drug will be a success," the spokesman told Xinhua. "We do not expect that such vaccinations will be available to the public within a short time." (AP)