Citation
LONDON, April 11 (Reuter) - A leading AIDS researcher has said
scientists were losing hope that a vaccine against the killer virus
would be developed soon and warned that infections worldwide were set
to triple by the year 2000.
Peter Piot, director of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) Aids
research division, said scientists trying to develop a vaccine were
growing disheartened.
There is no doubt that the development of a safe and effective HIV
vaccine is essential if we ever want to control this epidemic,
Piot
told a conference in Florence, Italy, on Sunday. The WHO made his paper
available on Monday.
Unfortunately, I see signs of discouragement among those working on
vaccine development. They say the science is not there yet, and the
politics are complicated,
Piot said.
He said it was vital researchers redouble their efforts.
Our historic responsibility is enormous. We must intensify and extend
our efforts, especially in basic research and vaccine development,
he
said.
As he spoke, the head of France's AIDS vaccine research programme,
mirroring results of other research groups, said vaccines developed in
laboratory conditions had proved useless against wild
strains
encountered by HIV sufferers.
We seemed to be doing so well in developing vaccines, but this has
rocked us,
professor Marc Girard was quoted as saying by British
newspapers. It has put us back years...I do not think we have much
chance of having an effective version ready for global use this
century.
More than 15 million people worldwide are affected by the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus HIV, passed on through contact with infected
blood or semen, and Piot warned that many more people, especially in
Africa and Asia, will be struck by the pandemic in the next six years.
The total figure of 15 million cumulative infections could almost
triple by the year 2000,
he said.
In Europe the number of infections increased by 11.6 percent from 1992
to 1993, while in the United States AIDS has become the leading cause
of death among those aged between 25 and 44.
But top microbiologist Peter McDonald of Flinders University,
Australia, said in London on Monday he was far more optimistic than
many of his colleagues.
I am certainly not as pessimistic as I was five years ago and I am
very confident that within 12 months there will be a vaccine available
for trial,
he said. Today we do know the most likely type of immune
response that will prevent infection with HIV.
Piot said the WHO backed efforts to test vaccines in the developing
world, adding it had agreed to initiate trials in Brazil, Rwanda,
Thailand and Uganda.
While encouraging the conduct of all phases of vaccine trials in
industrialised countries, we consider it of paramount importance that
the vaccine be tested in populations where they are most urgently
needed and will be most used,
he said.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
