Our chances of developing a vaccine are better than 50-50 Andrew McMichael, Oxford University

If the tests in Oxford are successful, trials will go to Nairobi in October under the supervision of Professor Job Bwayo and his team.

Professor of immunology at Oxford University Andrew McMichael said: "Our chances of developing a vaccine are better than 50-50. But the earliest we could expect a vaccine to be ready would be in seven to 10 years."

There are currently 34 million people in the world suffering from HIV and 70% of them are in Africa.

This is the first time a vaccine has been based on the HIV strain in Africa. It uses DNA and a wild animal virus similar to that used to combat smallpox.

The Oxford-Nairobi project is one of 11 similar groups around the world funded by the International Aids Vaccine Initiative (Iavi). It has received �14m from the British Government.

Iavi estimates that three times more than the �200m currently spent on research programmes is needed to find a vaccine within ten years.

Vaccination should provide a much cheaper and more effective means of tackling the pandemic, especially for the Third World which cannot afford HIV drugs and is barred from developing generic variations.

According to Iavi only 2% of the $20m spent annually on Aids around the world is for vaccine development.

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