Kampala — IT may take another while for Uganda and 12 other countries to know whether they will host the PAVE100 Aids vaccine trials that were halted before they could take off last year.

The new position emerged at a summit held last week in the United States to re-evaluate HIV/Aids vaccine research.

The trials were cancelled last year in the United States and South Africa after a promising vaccine candidate failed to protect people from HIV infection.

The stoppage of the trials that were using a vaccine from Merck Pharmaceutical company forced scientists to halt the PAVE100 trials that were intended to use a different vaccine candidate, but with minor similarities from the Vaccine Research Council.

Scientists at the Uganda Virus Research Institute had hoped that the meeting in the US would come up with something binding on the PAVE100 trials that were to be conducted in other African countries like Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia.

However, the convener of the meeting, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the director of the US' National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said the summit was not a forum on the future of PAVE100.

"No vote will be taken (or decision made) regarding the future of PAVE100 or any other specific clinical trial," Dr Fauci said in his March 25 presentation.

For a decision to be made on the halted trial, Dr Fauci said, implementing partners, established NIAID scientific bodies and other stakeholders as well as host country governments and communities would have to come together and agree.

The NIAID Division of Aids would then make the recommendations to the NIAID director for any action as agreed.

But Dr. Fauci reassured participants that the search for an Aids vaccine would continue despite the setbacks.

"NIAID is committed to bolstering the quality and quantity of HIV vaccine discovery research," he said.

With new HIV infections spiraling by the day and no cure yet in sight, the Chairperson of the Africa Aids Vaccine Initiative, Dr Pontiano Kaleebu, told African science journalists in Entebbe on March 21 that a preventive vaccine would be the best long term hope to stop the pandemic.