Fifteen volunteers were injected with a made-in-China AIDS vaccine yesterday in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, a signal China's phase-one AIDS vaccine trial has entered the final phase, said a Chinese medical expert.

Chen Jie, deputy director of the Guangxi autonomous regional disease control center, said clinical data from all the volunteers will serve as a scientific basis to show whether the second-phase trial project should start.

The State Food and Drug Administration approved the first clinical phase of the new AIDS vaccine on November 25, 2004. There have been 35 AIDS vaccine trials on humans around the world, most of which are still in their early phases.

About 840,000 people on China's mainland live with HIV/AIDS, according to Chinese medical authorities. The country reported its first AIDS case in 1985.

(Shanghai Daily September 19, 2005)