Bangalore : The first ever vaccine to prevent kala azar, or visceral leishmaniasis (VL), the world's second largest parasitic killer after malaria, is entering dual clinical trials in the US and India.

The trials funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are launched by the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI), a Seattle-based non-profit research body with a companion Phase 1 trial planned in India, an epicenter of the disease.

IDRI is transferring its technology to Pune's Gennova Biopharmaceuticals, which has opened a new facility that will produce the candidate vaccine for the clinical trial to begin later in 2012.

The phase-1 trial in the US has been launched in Washington state in the US, IDRI said.

"Our partnership with India will speed the development of an effective vaccine and accelerate control of the disease," IDRI founder and Chief Scientific Officer Steve Reed told IANS at the opening of the new facility in Pune last month.

"The trials (in the US and India) are a milestone toward halting a disease with a 90 percent fatality rate within two years if left untreated, killing much more quickly than AIDS," IDRI said in a statement.