However, Dr. Peter Figueroa, the Health Ministry's Chief of Epidemiology and AIDS, said that trying to find an HIV vaccine still is very important.

"Many consider it to be important and a high priority, however, it requires a special effort in order to get companies to invest in trials. The (WHO-UNAIDS HIV Vaccine Intiative) has helped to bring a number of stakeholders together but part of the problem is that the field is challenging due to the nature of the HIV and the fact that it mutates readily...and it mutates in the immune system, attacking the very immune system which we are trying to boost," he said.

Though the search for an effective vaccine is important, Dr. Figueroa said, however, that there should be a guarded hope of finding a viable vaccine in the near future, especially since scientists had made claims, in the past, of finding a vaccine within 10 years.

With the challenges of finding a safe and effective vaccine so great, most specialists in the HIV/AIDS campaign, agree that public health strategies should focus on preventing the contraction of HIV and on making treatment more widely available to those who are already living with the virus.

WHO statistics indicate that 40 million people, worldwide, are now infected with HIV and if all things remain equal, the projections are for another 45 million new infections by 2010. Dr. Figueroa said that 29 million of these new infections could be prevented if prevention methods are made widely available but the big problem is the lack of funds.

"We are currently spending one billion dollars annually on HIV but we need five billion dollars to avert new infections; so there is a large resource gap and also a human resource gap, that is, those people who can do the work," he said.

The other major gap in the struggle with HIV is that between those who can and those who cannot afford antiretroviral medication. Currently about 22,000 people are living with HIV in Jamaica and Dr. Figueroa estimates that between 6,000 and 7,000 of them need antiretrovirals, but only between 400 and 500 of them are on the drugs and these are patients processed primarily in the private sector.

However, it is hoped that within the next six months a $23 million public access programme will be put in place. Through the U.N. Global Fund on Malaria and AIDS, it is hoped that antiretroviral drugs will be made available at very low cost or at no cost to persons living with HIV/AIDS.

"With (our application to) the Global Fund, they asked us for some clarifications and we replied and we are awaiting a response to our clarifications. If that is acceptable, they do an audit of our financial and management capacity to manage the actual funds," said Dr. Figueroa.

But although there is this process which the local experts are awaiting, training of physicians has already started and strategies for the organisation of the delivery of treatment are being mapped out. Dr. Figueroa said that in terms of delivery, the plan is to set up treatment centres in each region.

"This would require a tremendous amount of effort and work...practitioners have to be trained and develop the confidence to treat persons with HIV/AIDS because studies have shown that persons with AIDS do better when they go to experienced physicians," Dr. Figueroa said.