India Plans AIDS Vaccine Trials by End of 2003

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Tenkamenin

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India Plans AIDS Vaccine Trials by End of 2003
Tue Nov 26, 1:31 PM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo!


By Sugita Katyal

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India hopes to begin the first phase of trials of an indigenously developed AIDS (news - web sites) vaccine at the end of next year, the president of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) said Tuesday.



"We're still in the preparatory stages of getting ready to do clinical trials and also thinking of doing manufacturing here. That process has been underway for about a year-and-a-half," Dr. Seth Berkley told Reuters.


"Hopefully, they (the first trials) will be held in India at the end of next year."


The Indian government has been working with the New York-based IAVI on developing an AIDS vaccine for HIV (news - web sites) strain C, the sub-type of the virus most common in India.


IAVI, a nonprofit group pushing for an AIDS vaccine for the developing world, has several vaccines in the works that are designed to fight specific strains of the virus found in Africa and other hard-hit areas.


Nearly four million Indians have HIV or AIDS, the world's second largest number after South Africa, and a US intelligence report has estimated the number could surge to 25 million by 2010.


The Indian government says the US intelligence report is exaggerated but has launched a nationwide program to halt the disease.


India faces an uphill battle in tackling AIDS because of the huge social and cultural stigma attached to the illness, which has spread from traditionally high-risk groups such as prostitutes, drug users and homosexuals to large rural and urban areas.


Berkley said the advantage of the vaccine was that it would be cheaper and would provide a more permanent solution to the problem, now found in every Indian state, than costly drugs.


"The disease is bad. We know it's now in every one of the states and territories and we know that it's in groups that are moving around," Berkley said.


"So, whether it turns out that it's really three million or four million or five million, what matters is that it's going up."
 
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Tenkamenin

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Women half of 42 million world HIV victims: UN
Last Updated Tue, 26 Nov 2002 21:53:33
JOHANNESBURG - Women now make up half the 42 million people living with HIV-AIDS worldwide, according to a United Nations annual report released Tuesday. UN experts monitoring the HIV-AIDS epidemic said sub-Saharan Africa remains the epicentre of the disease.


INDEPTH: AIDS in the 21st Century

So far this year, 2.5 million Africans have died from AIDS-related illnesses and another 29.5 million are living with HIV and AIDS – more than in any other region of the world.



At least half of those infected are women, which raises the risk of them passing the deadly virus to their children during childbirth.

The report said only a tiny fraction of the millions of people infected are receiving anti-retroviral drugs or any medicines to treat opportunistic AIDS infections. As a result, the death toll from AIDS is expected to continue rising, peaking towards the end of this decade.

Botswana is the worst-affected country in the region with an HIV prevalance rate of almost 39 per cent.

In Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the epidemic is fuelling the African famine by dropping agricultural productivity and increasing the nutritional requirements of those infected, said Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS.


Adults & Children estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS 2002

North America: 980,000
Caribbean: 440,000
Latin America: 1,500,000
Western Europe: 570,000
North Africa & Middle East: 550, 000
Sub-Saharan Africa: 29,400,000
Eastern Europe & Central Asia: 1,200,000
East Asia & Pacific: 1,200,000
South & Southeast Asia: 6,000,000
Australia & New Zealand: 15,000
Source: AIDS Epidemic Update December 2002


The drop in agricultural productivity, rising death toll and mounting number of AIDS orphans remain a huge challenge for these countries, states the report, which was released ahead of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1.
The report said one glimmer of good news is that intensive prevention and education programs in Uganda, Ethopia and South Africa seem to be turning the tide. HIV prevalence rates there are dropping among pregnant women and teenagers.

UNAIDS hailed the valiant efforts on the part of governments and countries in Africa to stem the pandemic, but said they are plainly inadequate. The report warned of an "explosive" spread of the disease unless more resources are devoted to fighting AIDS.

The fastest growing HIV problem is in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where the number of people with HIV in 2002 stood at 1.2 million. A few months ago, China announced it now had one million infected.



Written by CBC News Online staff
 
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Tenkamenin

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Apr 25, 2002
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AIDS epidemic set to explode in Eastern Europe


13:15 26 November 02

NewScientist.com news service

The global AIDS epidemic is expanding most rapidly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and is fuelling famine in southern Africa, according to the latest report from UNAIDS. The authors warn that the international response is desperately under-funded.

An estimated 42 million people worldwide are now living with HIV, up from 40 million in 2001. Five million people were newly infected in 2002. And despite some success with AIDS awareness and prevention programmes in South Africa and Ethiopia in particular, the African sub-continent continues to suffer most from the infection. More than three-quarters of the 3.1 million AIDS deaths in 2002 will be in this region.

"What we are seeing today in a number of countries of sub-Saharan Africa is an HIV epidemic that is overwhelming the resources of entire communities," says Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS.

"We must act now, on a much larger scale than anything we have done before, not only to assist those nations already hard-hit but also to stop the explosive growth of AIDS in parts of the world where the epidemic is newly emerging," he says.

In 2002, there were 250,000 new infections in Eastern Europe and the Central Asian republics, bringing the total for the region to 1.2 million. In Uzbekistan, there were almost as many new infections in the first half of 2002 as in the entire previous decade. The sharing of needles by drug users is the main route of HIV transmission in these countries.


"Critical moment"


Across Asia, the spread of HIV is still in its early phase, the report says. Without effective action, an estimated 11 million more people will become HIV-positive in the region by 2007.

"This is a critical moment today in a number of countries in Eastern Europe, central, south and eastern Asia," says Gro Harlem Brundtland, director general of the World Health Organization. "Unless we see national initiatives championed by the highest level of government, the growth in infections can be unstoppable."

In sub-Saharan Africa, HIV/AIDS is contributing to a steady fall in agricultural production, worsening the effects of devastating drought.

In 2001 alone, AIDS killed 500,000 people in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. About 20 per cent of the adult population in these countries are living with HIV/AIDS and more than 14 million people are at risk of starvation.


Fighting back

But the report also highlights the limited success of some anti-HIV programmes. In South Africa, the number of pregnant HIV-positive women under 20 fell to 15.4 per cent in 2001, from 21 per cent in 1998. And in Ethiopia, the HIV rate is declining in young women in the capital, Addis Ababa.

"There is strong evidence from around the world that the AIDS epidemic does yield, in some cases dramatically, to determined human intervention," says Piot. "We can prevent 29 million new HIV infections this decade if we implement a full prevention package globally by 2005."

UNAIDS estimates that these programmes in developing countries will require $10.5 billion by 2005. To successfully combat AIDS, funding will have to rise to $15 billion annually by 2007 and be maintained for at least a decade.

But earlier in 2002, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced it has allocated only about $1 billion over five years to fight HIV/AIDS.
 
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Mcleanhatch

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isnt this from the large chunk of money bill gates gave india(?1 billion?). where they thanked him be giving him a huge condom

any way i think that money could have been better served here on americans with AIDS or homeless or to help low income people with some free health care
 
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Tenkamenin

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Mcleanhatch said:
isnt this from the large chunk of money bill gates gave india(?1 billion?). where they thanked him be giving him a huge condom

any way i think that money could have been better served here on americans with AIDS or homeless or to help low income people with some free health care
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I dunno if this was Bill Gates money or not but lets say it was, you can't say that his money isn't being served right because he's helping people out. The article stated that India had the second highest HIV infected people in the world, 4million people now thats serious. And with Indias population and lack of education about the disease there could be some serious serious problems in the future for that country.
 
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Mcleanhatch

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May 8, 2002
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Tenkamenin said:


I dunno if this was Bill Gates money or not but lets say it was, you can't say that his money isn't being served right because he's helping people out. The article stated that India had the second highest HIV infected people in the world, 4million people now thats serious. And with Indias population and lack of education about the disease there could be some serious serious problems in the future for that country.
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^^^^thats very true but what i am saying is he should have done that to help his own people here that really need help. i mean i dont know about you but i know i would rather help out a family member or a real good friend before a helped out a stranger. i am just saying since he is in the giving mood maybe he should have thought about his people here in the USA that really could have been helped by him.
 
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Al-Kaholik

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Apr 26, 2002
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They still need it more than we do....if I was gates I would have done the same thing, instead of people always actin stingy with this "I'm only gonna help out my country" bullshit I think people should just start helpin out the most needy like that.
 
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Mcleanhatch

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Al-Kaholik said:
They still need it more than we do....if I was gates I would have done the same thing, instead of people always actin stingy with this "I'm only gonna help out my country" bullshit I think people should just start helpin out the most needy like that.
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sure they need help but 1 billion. you guys get mad because you guys want the government to spend more than the bilions that they already are on social programs, but dont get mad when this guy gives a billion of dollars to a foreign nation.

why dont you guys get mad at their government or at the rich people/corperations in their country for not helping. the way you guys do to this government.

i mean india is not a poor country. shit their 1 of only three superpowers n the middleeast that have a moderate nuclear arsenol.
 
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Mcleanhatch

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May 8, 2002
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YOuNg WiNo said:
DOUBT THIS COUNTRY WOULD DO ANYTHING IF GATES GAVE THEM 1 BILLION DOLLERS MOST OF THE FUNDS WOULD PROABLY BE MISS USE.
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i mean he should have given it to charities here in the USA not to the government so they could do something with it.
 
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Tenkamenin

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Apr 25, 2002
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Mcleanhatch said:


i mean he should have given it to charities here in the USA not to the government so they could do something with it.
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Man I think you are completly twisted up...I know what you are talking about now. Bill Gates did NOT donate 1 Billion dollars to India he donated 100 million dollars to international AIDS research. That money does not go to one particular nation but a bunch...

The other money went to his foundation and other charities around the states. He bought a bunch of computers for some inner city schools around the country.
 
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Mcleanhatch

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May 8, 2002
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Tenkamenin said:


Man I think you are completly twisted up...I know what you are talking about now. Bill Gates did NOT donate 1 Billion dollars to India he donated 100 million dollars to international AIDS research. That money does not go to one particular nation but a bunch...

The other money went to his foundation and other charities around the states. He bought a bunch of computers for some inner city schools around the country.
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my bad
 
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