The present invention relates to the use of a Severe Combined T B Immune Deficient (SCID) mouse engrafted with human immunocompetent cells (Hu SCID mouse) as an animal model for the evaluation of the effectiveness of an HIV vaccine. Furthermore the present invention relates to a method for the evaluation of an HIV vaccine wherein a Hu SCID mouse of the invention is inoculated with the HIV vaccine and thereafter challenged with HI virus. The invention also relates to novel HIV vaccine compositions which can be evaluated using the animal model.
