ROME, July 5 (Xinhuanet) -- A ground-breaking Italian AIDS vaccine has passed its first test with flying colours, the research chief said here on Tuesday.

    Barbara Ensoli said to reporters that all the Italian volunteers- both HIV-positive and healthy - had shown a "100 percent response to the vaccine by producing specific antibodies".     

    She cautioned, however, that "these are just preliminary results and the first phase of testing was primarily aimed at seeing if the vaccine was safe."

    Ensoli works for the Italian Higher Health Institute (ISS), which has said it still needs some 400 million euros to get the vaccine on the street by 2010.

    ISS chief Enrico Garacci hailed the results of the first stage and said the project could now move on to the second one - a vast testing programme in AIDS-stricken Africa.

    The vaccine - described by eminent oncologist Umberto Veronesi as "intelligent" - received the green light for human testing in 2003.

    After the year-long first phase, the next stage, involving thousands of patients in Italy and abroad, will take two to three years, Ensoli said.

    In stage two the team plans to conduct tests in Africa, the continent most affected by the AIDS pandemic.

    At a recent UNAIDS conference in Barcelona, it was estimated that there are some 50 million HIV and AIDS sufferers around the world and a further 80 million people will contract the disease between now and 2020. Enditem