Cabinet says it expects to receive the report on the provision of antiretroviral drugs to people infected with HIV/AIDS in the country in the coming few weeks.

The report has been compiled by a task team comprising the National Health Department and National Treasury after investigating resource implications of providing these drugs to all people needing such treatment in the country.

Government established this team in April last year after it had reaffirmed the position that the drugs could improve the health of people living with HIV/AIDS 'if administered at an appropriate stage in the progression of the condition in accordance with international standards'.

In a statement released today during its mid-year Lekgotla in Pretoria, Cabinet said the move to provide antiretrovirals in the country, should be handled with utmost urgency.

The Cabinet Lekgotla started yesterday afternoon and is expected to end tomorrow after which President Thabo Mbeki and relevant ministers will brief the media on matters discussed sometime next week.

In this regard, Cabinet said it had been informed the work of the task team was nearing completion.

Cabinet also welcomed the progress made by the South African Vaccine Initiative (Saavi) established and funded by government to develop a vaccine against HIV/AIDS.

“The meeting noted that the clinical trials on ‘South African products’ in this regard would start in 2004, while the other products developed in collaboration with international partners would start later this year – pending approval from the Medicines Control Council (MCC) and Ethics Committee,” Cabinet said in its statement.

The MCC last month approved the first human clinical trials for a phase one HIV vaccine trial in the country, with the use of cutting edge technology.

This is the first HIV vaccine trial to be approved in the country and the first in the world to test a subtype C vaccine.

The Saavi said this was a phase one human clinical trial of the AlphaVax replicon Vector (ArV ) clade C candidate HIV-1 vaccine to assess the safety and immune system responses induced by this new vaccine technology.

“It (the technology) utilises virus-like particles, containing parts of an attenuated strain of Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus and a gene from a South African strain of the HIV virus, to deliver the vaccine to the immune system,” said the Saavi.

This gene is said to be a ‘promising’ target for the cellular immune responses thought to be a prerequisite for a successful HIV vaccine.

Saavi said the trial would involve a small number of volunteers in both South Africa and the US – a total of 96 participants from both countries respectively.

“Volunteers will be involved in the trial for about a year and it is anticipated that with data analysis the trial will last approximately two years”.

The HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) is conducting the trial, which will take place at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto and the SAAVI Vaccine Research Unit at the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Durban.

The US trial sites will be at the universities of Johns Hopkins University, Columbia, Rochester and Vanderbilt.

Twenty-four volunteers are required at each South African site and SAAVI said recruitment activities were continuing in preparation for the first vaccinations.

Volunteers will be healthy, HIV-negative adults who are willing and able to give informed consent and intensive pre-recruitment education.

Cabinet said while this research was still at an early stage, the kind of progress being made was yet another source of hope in the comprehensive campaign against the pandemic. – BuaNews.