MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian government is to allocate 400 million rubles ($16 million) for research into the development of an HIV vaccine, the consumer rights watchdog said on Wednesday.

The funding is part of international efforts agreed upon at the G8 summit in St. Petersburg in July 2006.

Rospotrebnadzor said the government had signed the order in late 2007 and would allot a total of a billion rubles ($41 million) for research, HIV monitoring and other operations in the field in 2008-2010.