|
'Microbicides are needed now'
23/04/2006 22:20 - (SA)
Cape Town - The development of an effective HIV-fighting vaginal microbicide needs to be stepped up a gear, delegates to the Microbicides 2006 conference were told in Cape Town on Sunday.
"We need a microbicide now," said women's-rights advocate Graca Machel to 1 200 delegates, most of them from Africa, at the opening session of the two-yearly conference.
"I understand the limitations of science, but we simply have to find ways to do this faster."
Calling for more investment in research and development, she said worldwide funding needed to be doubled to $280m a year for the next five years.
Pharmaceutical companies should realise that any risks they might incur in backing research would be covered by sales in developed countries.
"Millions will buy them," she said
She said that in Africa, 76% of HIV-positive people in the 15- to 24-year age group were women.
Made in the form of a gel
Their vulnerability stemmed from a pervasive disempowerment, and the fact that for too long, only lip service had been paid to gender equality.
"We are failing to protect our mothers, sisters and daughters," she said.
Researchers say vaginal microbicides, hailed as a potentially powerful tool in the fight against HIV/Aids, typically take the form of a gel that kills or inactivates HIV cells during sex.
Conference co-chair Dr Gita Ramjee of the Medical Research Council told journalists at a pre-conference briefing that many women were not in a position to negotiate the use of condoms, and there was a need for a product they could use with or without their partners' knowledge.
There were a number of clinical trials going on around the world, including several in South Africa, and researchers were hoping the first set of results, positive or negative, would be available at the end of 2008.
"Considering we've waited 25 years to address the epidemic, 2008 is not far away," she said.
The earliest a safe and efficient microbicide might be expected on the market, should the trials prove successful, was 2010.
Machel said it was estimated that a microbicide that was even only 60% efficient could prevent 3.7 million new infections in three years if used by all women who were unable to insist on condoms.
Earlier in the day, more than 1 000 supporters of the Treatment Action Campaign and other civil-society groups marched on the convention centre to hand in a memorandum to conference representatives.
No research into showering
It called for greater investment by international institutions and the pharmaceutical industry in developing microbicides, and a commitment to making them widely available and affordable.
In his address, European Union ambassador Pater Christiansen slipped in a tongue-in-cheek reference to former deputy president Jacob Zuma, saying it was "absolutely untrue" that the EU intended diverting money from microbicide research, into research on the effects of showering.
Zuma had claimed during his rape trial in Johannesburg that he had showered to lessen the chances of contracting HIV from a sexual partner.
- SAPA
|
News
HIV/Aids Special Report
