As the AIDS conference closes in Mexico City today, we’re looking forward to the next one in Vienna in 2010 – and the shifts in the AIDS world that will hapen in the two years leading up to it.
Prevention is a huge theme of this AIDS conference, as it was in Toronto. Today, scientists addressed one of the uncertainties that might sandbag a promising prevention strategy.
Decades after AIDS first appeared, doctors are still hoping for a cure.
Assumptions can be dangerous, particularly when it comes to disease. And so it’s important to note that at the AIDS 2008 conference experts have challenged numerous preconceptions about HIV transmission.
One example of this involves risks relating to heterosexual sex. It’s no secret that having unsafe sex is similar to engaging in a round of Russian roulette. Scientists have often cited the estimate that one encounter of unprotected heterosexual intercourse with an infected individual carries a 1 in 500 to 1 in 1,000 chance of HIV transmission. But results presented here in Mexico City suggest that in certain circumstances the risk is much, much higher than that.
Myron Cohen of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill spoke here yesterday about data from a recent systematic review he helped conduct that suggests the story is far more complex. One study he and his colleagues looked at reported a rate of HIV transmission of once out of every 3.1 acts of heterosexual anal intercourse. They also found the rate was higher in cases where a partner had genital ulcers, for example, which facilitate the spread of virus.
So while the 1 in 1,000 figure might apply to some heterosexual encounters, it certainly does not apply to all of them.
In recent weeks we’ve heard announcements about increases in funding towards the treatment HIV/AIDS. At the G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan last month, world leaders set the target of spending $60 billion over the next five years towards tackling a handful of diseases, including HIV/AIDS. And just last week US President George W. Bush reauthorized an augmented version of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which will is slated to supply $48 billion through 2013 to help fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa.
But with increased spending comes increased scrutiny of returns on investment—and that’s very much a topic of discussion here at the AIDS 2008 meeting.
Posted on behalf of Roxanne Khamsi, News editor of Nature Medicine
Heavy rain and traffic could not keep thousands of people from attending the opening session of the AIDS 2008 meeting here in Mexico City last night. There, in the massive auditorium, we heard rallying cries against HIV/AIDS from global leaders, including Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary general; Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO); and Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, president of Mexico. The speakers remained on message, echoing the theme of this year’s conference: a call for broader and more comprehensive treatments and prevention measures under the headline ‘Universal Action Now’.
The crowd was generally responsive to each of the talks; but they saved most of their enthusiasm for one of the lesser-known presenters.
Is the UN Joint Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) retreating from a global commitment to provide HIV prevention, treatment and care to everyone who needs it by 2010?
I can’t give my dad the last word on a vaccine!
Political leaders rarely get warm fuzzies at these AIDS conferences. But this afternoon, a crowd of hundreds of activists and scientists melted like teenage girls at the sight of former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Prompted by conference co-chair Helene Gayle, the crowd serenaded Clinton, singing “Happy Birthday” to him after he delivered a wide-ranging speech on issues related to HIV and AIDS. Clinton turns 60 on Saturday.
Since my dad covered his first AIDS conference in 1992, a lot has changed. But one thing hasn’t: we still don’t have a vaccine to prevent AIDS.
This is one of the saddest ongoing failures of science. Foundations, governments and a handful of companies have spent billions of dollars over the past 20 years trying to develop a vaccine to protect people from AIDS. But now, you hear scientists openly admitting that we may never reach this goal.