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AIDS battle needs greater political help
http://www.100kang.com 2005-10-10 23:59:13 AIDS


AIDS activists called for greater political backing to exploit scientific progress in the battle against the pandemic, at the start of a major international conference.

More than 5,000 researchers and experts are in Rio de Janeiro for the third annual International AIDS Society (AIS) congress to examine advances in treatments for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which has killed millions in the past two decades.

The four-day conference, which ends today, has assembled some 5,000 scientists, health care providers and public policy specialists to discuss the latest advances in the fight against AIDS.

Experts from 114 countries have presented studies focusing on developments in treatments, vaccines and basic science.

Helene Gayle, director of HIV, Tuberculosis and Reproductive Health programmes at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, called the conference an opportunity to explore state-of-the-art scientific developments.

But she told delegates that scientific progress had to be backed up by greater political action to help the growing number of sufferers.

The goal of achieving universal access to HIV treatment by 2010 was recently endorsed by the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized powers at a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.

Africa has about two thirds of the estimated number of AIDS/HIV sufferers around the world and most of them do not have access to new treatments.

Stephen Lewis, a United Nations (UN) envoy for Africa, questioned the results of the recent G8 summit as he highlighted the plight of AIDS sufferers in the continent.

First, I would argue that the G8 summit was not a breakthrough; it was in fact a disappointment. I would argue that we got caught up in music, and the spectacle, and the spin and the celebrities, and we applauded before applause was justified, Lewis told the conference.

He said that while the cancellation of multilateral debt for 18 countries - 14 in Africa - was a start, Africa still carried the insurmountable burden of over US$200 billion of debt that crippled the battle against poverty and the pandemic.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, about 60 per cent of the estimated 465,000 sufferers get new treatments. But Brazil, the host nation, has been hailed for its aggressive policies to counter AIDS.

More than 150,000 of the 362,364 AIDS victims registered between 1980 and June 2004 are getting new cocktails of drugs to battle the syndrome.

Brazil was chosen for the main AIDS conference of the year because of its efforts to bring free treatment to sufferers and campaigns to prevent the spread of the disease, including giving out large numbers of free condoms.

The Brazilian Government has started the widespread production of generic drugs since the start of the 1990s and soon hopes to be self-sufficient in the production of anti-AIDS treatments.

The authorities made an accord this month with the US pharmaceutical giant Abbott to bring down the price of its drug Kaletra which is used in anti-retroviral therapies.

About 23,400 Brazilian sufferers currently get the cocktail and this is expected to rise to 60,000 in the next six years.


New epidemic in Eurasia

On Monday, scientists pointed out the increased flow of heroin out of Afghanistan is creating a new AIDS epidemic among needle-sharing drug addicts in Eurasia, where the disease once had been rare.

Doctor Christopher Beyrer said a rising number of HIV infections had been detected in Belarus, Iran, Moldavia, Tajikistan, the Ukraine and other countries along the route traffickers use to smuggle Afghan heroin into Eastern Europe.

HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, is often spread among intravenous drug users who share needles.

Beyrer said the situation was especially dangerous because only about 10 per cent of drug users have access to needle exchange and drug substitution programmes in those countries, where cheap heroin has become readily available since the Taliban in Afghanistan was toppled.

Beyrer, an associate professor of epidemiology and international health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, spoke on Monday at the Third International AIDS Society Conference on Pathogenesis and Treatment.

Today's presentations give us a window into an evolving epidemic that is growing steadily more severe, said Doctor Celso Ramos, a former president of the Brazilian Infectology Society. The global response must be as dynamic as the epidemic itself.

The fight against AIDS was given a new impetus in recent weeks after world leaders at the G8 meeting in Scotland endorsed the goal of universal access to antiretroviral treatment by 2010.

Antiretroviral drugs are currently the only available treatment for the disease. The drugs are effective but expensive, and many patients have side effects and develop resistance to them over time.

And although the number of people receiving antiretroviral treatment tripled in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia last year alone, according to the World Health Organization, much remains to be done.

One of the paradoxes of AIDS is that the more we do, the more it becomes clear that we haven't done enough, said Doctor Jim Yong Kim, director of the World Health Organization's department of HIV/AIDS. The amount of research needed to achieve universal access is significant. We need new paediatric formulations and simpler diagnostic technologies.

Another concern of researchers is the growing number of people infected with more than one strain of HIV. Scientists say these patients are more likely to have genetically diverse viruses, making treatment more complicated.

According to the International AIDS Society, which sponsored the conference, more than 60 million people have been infected with HIV since 1980s. An estimated 39.4 million people are living with HIV today.

 


  
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