AIDS has killed 11 million people, and 16,000 new people every day are infected with HIV, the executive director of the UN AIDS programme (UNAIDS) has said. Dr Peter Piot said yesterday at the opening day of the 12th world AIDS conference in Geneva that the development of a safe, efficient and affordable vaccine was the only real hope to curb the epidemic.
There are 30.6 million people with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which in most cases is sexually transmitted. "Most of these will die within 10 years if treatment is not made available on a wider scale," UNAIDS warned last week ahead of the conference, which is expected to attract 12,000 doctors, research scientists, activists, people with HIV, drug company representatives and journalists.
Talk of dramatic breakthroughs in treatment of HIV and AIDS at the last conference in Canada in 1996 has given way to realisation that prospects of eradicating the disease remain an elusive dream. The conference title, "Bridging the Gap", reflects the yawning gulf between the chances of proper treatment in the rich and poor worlds.
"This will be the conference of new realism - of progress in prevention since Vancouver, but also of the explosion of the epidemic in new areas of the world," said Dr Piot. "We have a more realistic appreciation of where we are in terms of treatment compared to where some people thought we were two years ago, when hubris had taken over from facts."
One of the main discussion points will be the development of expensive drug cocktails, costing about $15,000 a patient annually, which have increased life expectancy among AIDS sufferers in industrialised countries. But such treatment remains little more than a dream for the more than 90 per cent of victims who live in developing countries.
Critics of international AIDS treatment strategies say lack of treatment in poor countries is not limited to these cocktails. They say there is also a chronic lack of proper treatment for illnesses associated with AIDS, such as tuberculosis and diarrhoea, which are often fatal but which could be treated for less than $20 a year per patient.
Meanwhile, it was announced that the software billionaire, Mr Bill Gates, has made a $1.5 million donation to the charity, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), to help develop a vaccine. The World Bank has given $1 million. The British government and Levi Strauss have also offered funding.
The IAVI said yesterday that, although scientists believed developing a vaccine is possible, "so far vaccines have not been a priority". The pharmaceutical industry is reluctant to invest heavily in a project that may not bring vast rewards, as there is no money in the developing world to yield the returns it says it needs for the high costs of research.
"Only a vaccine has any chance of ending the global AIDS epidemic. However, the world is not on track to meet the goal of a safe and effective AIDS vaccine in the next decade," Dr Seth Berkley, the president of IAVI, said yesterday.