The trials are being run in cooperation with the Strasbourg (France) based Aventus Pasteur and The Immune Response Corporation, a US company co-founded by Jonas Salk, the discoverer of the polio vaccine.

The government-backed trials will start in April and are scheduled to run for 18 months. It will involve 60 patients from Ottawa and Montreal.

The trials are being conducted by the Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics (CANVAC).

Canadian Industry Minister Lucienne Robillard told a press conference that the 60 patients "have been on effective therapy and have had no detectable HIV in their blood for at least two years."

According to CANVAC, the hope is that "therapeutic vaccination" against HIV could reduce drug dependence, "thus gaining a reprieve for the important side effects" of drug cocktails.

Aventis Pasteur said it produced 1.4 billion doses of vaccines last year.

The Immune Response Corporation already produces REMUNE, an immune-based therapy designed to boost the body's natural defence mechanisms as a way to slow the progression of HIV.

TERRA.WIRE