SOUTH African researchers are to participate in a search for an AIDS vaccine with US scientists, the non-governmental organisation International AIDS Vaccine Initiative announced in London this week.

Researchers from the University of Cape Town, under the Medical Research Council, will take part in an international HIV vaccine research and development partnership.

In what has been hailed as the largest single non-government research award, the initiative will invest $9,1-million (about R52-million), to be split equally between a UK-Kenya and a US-South Africa partnership. Both partnership agreements include provisions to ensure that the fruits of the research will be made readily available to the world's worst-hit countries.

The SA group will work on a "Clade C formulation" vaccine to treat the strain of the AIDS virus found in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project will be one of the first to research a way to combat this strain.

Council president-elect Dr William Makgoba said: "The council will work together with IAVI in the development of suitable and specific vaccines for the people."

Speaking from London, IAVI spokesman Victor Zonana said: "The intellectual property provisions will ensure that if the vaccine is successful it will be affordable in developing countries. It would be criminal if the vaccine was available only in industrialised countries for 10 to 15 years and then trickled down into the developing world.

"This has been the situation from time immemorial. Triple therapy which can prolong life is still unavailable in South Africa."

Zonana said the initiative had a global orientation. "Our contract ensures that companies can charge whatever they want for the vaccine in industrialised countries, but in developing countries they would have to make it available at a lower cost. Eventually we would like to see it being manufactured in South Africa."

Zonana said South Africa was a good place to develop the vaccine as it had a strong medical infrastructure and research base, a strong manufacturing base and a dire need for the vaccine as 1 500 people were infected with the virus every day, adding to the three million people with HIV/AIDS.

The grant will cover the cost of the research. No local funding is being sought.

President of the initiative Dr Seth Berkley said: "Our goal is not only to ensure the development of an AIDS vaccine as soon as possible. It is to make it accessible to anyone in the world that needs it."

This move will be welcomed worldwide as treatment of HIV/AIDS infections is extremely costly and the numbers of those infected with HIV/AIDS grow daily.

According to a report by the Joint United Nations Programme and the World Health Organisation, 5,8 million more people were infected in the past year - about 11 men, women and children every minute. The total number of people living with the virus rose by a tenth to 33,4 million worldwide. Half of all new infections are now among people aged 15 to 34.

Sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the hardest hit.

Since the epidemic began, 34 million Africans have been infected and almost 12 million have died. This year there were an estimated 5 500 funerals a day in the region.

The AIDS vaccine is supported as the best long-term solution to the global pandemic.

The Elton John AIDS Foundation has donated �150 000 (about R1,4-million) to the effort and the UK National AIDS Trust will contribute �80 000 from its recent grant from the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund to help launch a joint European AIDS vaccine development project with the initiative in London.

The US-SA partnership will be led by Dr Robert Olmstead and Dr Robert Johnson of Alphavax Corporation in Durham, North Carolina.

The product will be based on HIV strains from South Africa. Until now most vaccine candidates have been produced from HIV strains prevalent in North America and Europe.

The development partnership was recommended for funding by IAVI's blue-ribbon scientific advisory committee, which selected them after reviewing a range of proposals from around the world.

According to IAVI, the two projects have two of the most promising vaccine technologies in the world, far enough advanced in development that they could be tested quickly on humans.

IAVI's scientific strategy is to ensure that every promising vaccine design is pursued as quickly as possible.

At the launch in London this week it outlined a strategy of moving multiple vaccine candidates forward in partnership with vaccine producers and developing countries.