The 24 co-authors include two Nobel prize winners, college presidents, the heads of major public health departments of the U.S. government, and AIDS researchers from France, South Africa, England, Switzerland, China, India and the United Nations.

In concept, said co-author Dr. David Baltimore, the proposal is rather like a Manhattan Project against AIDS.

"In the sense it is a commitment to use the skills of the scientific community to solve a problem, it is like the Manhattan Project," said Baltimore, a Nobel laureate. "But the Manhattan Project depended on secrecy and we're doing the exact opposite."

Baltimore said the research would be conducted openly, with information and discoveries shared quickly and completely between labs.

Despite more than 20 years of effort, researchers have yet to find the ideal approach against AIDS. The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, that causes AIDS attacks the very cells in the body's immune system that play a key role in protecting against infection.

Most vaccines cause the production of antibodies that neutralize an invading microbe, but HIV attacks the immune system itself and antibodies made against HIV are ineffective.

Vaccines that have been tested have failed to trigger the immune system response needed to kill or control HIV, and researchers are still uncertain exactly how to prompt a vaccine-induced defense against the virus.

As a result, the plan calls for each of the labs to take a different approach in an effort to find the best route to a vaccine defense.

"Increasing the diversity of approaches and coordinating the types of vaccines entering clinical trials are fundamental to speeding global HIV vaccine development," the authors write.

Vaccines usually are developed by private pharmaceutical companies, but Baltimore said the problems and expense of developing an HIV vaccine make the traditional ways impractical.

"The pharmaceutical industry is involved, but not with the intensity that we would like," he said. "There are only a few companies that have put out an intense effort. I think part of the reason is that it is not seen as a potentially profitable enterprise."

A crash program to develop and test an AIDS vaccine, the experts said, could cost billions of dollars and take five to 10 years.

But it is an effort that humanity cannot ignore, said the experts.

AIDS now kills more people than any other infectious disease. By 2010, it's estimated there will be 45 million new infections. HIV kills people in the prime of life, causing a serve impact on a nation's economy and leaving behind millions of orphaned children.

The entire continent of Africa has been crippled by AIDS, said Baltimore, and the disease is now becoming a major health threat in Asia.

"AIDS has decimated Africa and if it spreads to the same percentage of people in India or China, it will decimate those countries," he said.

The lead author of the study is Dr. Richard D. Klausner, the former director of the National Cancer Institute. Co-authors include Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the chief U.S. federal AIDS research agency; Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Gary J. Nabel, head of the Vaccine Research Center at NIAID, and Harold Varmus, a Nobel prize winner, former head of the National Institutes of Health and the current president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

GENEVA (AFP) - Anti-AIDS spending in low- and middle-income countries in 2003 will amount to just under five billion dollars, or only about half what is forecast to be needed to fight the epidemic annually by 2005, UNAIDS said.

"Even with recent increases in AIDS spending, the mismatch between need and funding continues to be one of the biggest obstacles in the struggle to control the epidemic," Peter Piot, the executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) said in a statement Thursday.

"Although we are half way there in closing the AIDS funding gap, there is still half way to go," he added.

UNAIDS estimates in its latest report on funding to fight the disease that more than 10.5 billion dollars will be needed annually by 2005 in low- and middle-income countries.

The EU and US have recently announced plans to step up AIDS funding, and UNAIDS pointed out that if realized the plans would translate into an additional 1.2 billion dollars of annual spending by 2005.

"Laos has been the quiet achiever at keeping the spread of HIV at bay, but this could all change," Tony Lisle, a top UNAIDS official in Southeast Asia, told Reuters in an interview.

"The country is facing the same issues that its neighbors have faced in the past, and the threat of HIV/AIDS is as big as ever. As the pace of development increases, so does the AIDS risk."

A UN-World Health Organization report at the end of 2001 said Laos had an HIV infection rate of 0.04 percent of adults between the ages of 15 and 49 -- a fraction of the equivalent rate of 2.7 percent in Cambodia and 1.8 percent in Thailand. Laos has around 5.4 million people.

The UN said Laos has hardly any migrant workers, few intravenous drug users and the government had successfully educated its people about the disease when infections began to rise in the mid-1990s.

Laos is one of the world's last remaining communist countries, and since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 the secretive state's economy has struggled.

The nation's currency, the kip, lost 90 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar in the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.

In a bid to boost its fragile economy, Laos has promoted tourism and improved trade ties with its neighbors.

ROAD TO SEX

New roads are planned to link Laos with Thailand, Vietnam and China. A domestic north-south route is also proposed.

But the social implications of this could be high. The UN fears improved roads could bring disease along with foreign income.

"More truck drivers and construction workers will come across the borders -- single men or men living away from their families -- which will inevitably increase the number of people working in the domestic sex industry," Lisle said.

"Unlike its neighbors, Laos doesn't have a large sex-worker population or a large client base, but this could all change."

Until the mid-1990s, the government restricted movement between provinces. Wealthy individuals and businessmen were the only people allowed to leave the country.

But poverty means large numbers of people are expected to travel to China and Thailand to fish or work on building sites -- and the UN says many are likely to be lured toward prostitution.

"Migrant workers may return to the country and spread the disease, especially those who've worked in the sex industry," Lisle said.

"And those who stay in the country will inevitably move to the bigger towns and cities. The temptation is there for Laotian women to work in the sex industry and earn more money to support their families."

''It's tragic that more than two decades into the disease, we still have 250,000 people who don't know they have it,'' CDC Director Julie Gerberding said Wednesday. ''Our goal is to help people to know their status and get treated.''

Taken together, these programs also mark a major new trend in AIDS prevention. With a $35 million push from CDC -- through its initiative called ''Advancing HIV Prevention: New Strategies for a Changing Epidemic'' -- HIV tests are rapidly becoming a critical component of prevention efforts, along with traditional programs designed to teach people most at risk to protect themselves.

''Knowing one's HIV status is one of the most powerful motivators of behavior change,'' Gerberding said. ''Most people who know they're HIV-positive take appropriate steps to protect their partners.''

By vastly expanding access to the newly approved test, which is made by Orasure Technologies, the CDC hopes to reduce the number of people who have HIV and don't know it. Of an estimated 900,000 HIV-positive people in the USA, about 30% either have not been tested or never returned for their test results. Many won't find out they're infected, or seek treatment, until it's too late. CDC hopes to shrink that population to just 5% of those who are infected.

''The most important aspect of this new, rapid test is that each year 10,000 people in the U.S. test positive but never return for their test results,'' says Mick Ellis, director of testing and counseling for the Whitman-Walker Clinic in Washington, D.C., the nation's largest AIDS service provider. ''With the rapid test, we'll be able to give them their results in 20 minutes.''

The test poses challenges to those who administer it, however. All counselors must be trained not only to administer the test and process the results, but they also must be prepared to break the news to people who test positive. ''This is no small thing,'' Whitman-Walker counselor Rod McCoy says. ''You have to be prepared for whatever the reaction might be.''

The large-scale rollout begins Friday with programs in cities across the USA. Among them:

* A ''Say Yes to the Test'' rally at the Studio Museum of Harlem by hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons of Def Jam Records. Sponsored by Abbott Laboratories, Orasure's marketing partner, the rally is one of dozens of events planned in dozens of cities. ''It's targeted at cities with large African-American and Latino populations,'' says Heather Mason of Abbott. About 70% of new HIV patients are in those groups.

* A Kaiser Family Foundation-Viacom partnership. Using expertise from foundation experts, Viacom will broadcast HIV information on a number of shows, including Becker, The Parkers, One on One and Girlfriends. In a taped broadcast Thursday night, Big Tigger, host of BET's Rap City, will take the test himself.

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