A US biotechnology corporation has been giving details of a vaccine against Aids, which it hopes could be accessible to delegates attendance the International Aids Conference in Barcelona.

The head of VaxGen, Donald Francis, said that the vaccine worked on chimpanzees and he was positive about the effects of trials on humans, due to be available next year.

VaxGen’s vaccine will be element of the biggest-ever HIV vaccine trial due to begin later this year in Thailand with the participation of 16,000 people.

Reports of scientific advancement were accompanied by warnings that rich nations needed to spend more to assist bring the epidemic under manage.

Malaysian activist Irene Fernandez told the convention that North American and European countries were not meeting their targets for foreign aid set by the Association for Economic Co-operation and Development If they did, she mentioned, there would be sufficient money to fund Aids-prevention programmers.

The six-day conference is planned by the United Nations group UNAids and is being attended by 15,000 delegates.

In the Thai trial, VaxGen’s produce will be tested in amalgamation with another vaccine, considered to produce a diverse sort of immune reaction. Scientists hope this will product in a higher level of defense than either vaccine would persuade on its own.

But VaxGen is positive that its product will as well work as a solitary vaccine.

Campaigners have given a cautious greeting to VaxGen’s statement, but say it is necessary to wait for the study of clinical trials.

BBC health journalist Chris Hogg says that 21 years after the fight against Aids began, only eight vaccines are at this time being tested on humans to any major degree.

Most of these are still in the near the beginning stages. VaxGen is the only corporation testing its products on humans in an end-stage test.

To be granted a license, though, it will have to show the vaccine is valuable in at least one-third of patients.

Existing treatments attack HIV only after it has entered cells.

A study presented to the discussion showed three quarters of gay and bisexual men in US cities who were infected with HIV did not know they had the virus.