New York - The United States told the United Nations Tuesday
that a vaccine against the AIDS virus remains elusive 27 years after
the epidemic began and could take decades more to develop.
A second day of UN debate on efforts against HIV/AIDS shifted into
high-level government discussions on Tuesday.
Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told the UN General Assembly that clinical
tests of an HIV vaccine were disappointing last year.
He said an effective vaccine could take decades to develop and
that the AIDS virus has shown its 'uncanny ability to elude the
body's natural attempt to contain it.'
'HIV has proven to be very different from those viruses for which
we have developed effective immunization,' Fauci said in a speech.
'Historically it has taken decades to find effective vaccines to
combat most infectious diseases.'
'I cannot predict when we'll get a vaccine,' Fauci told reporters.
'It may take 10 years, or it may take more.'
The first known AIDS victims were five gay men in San Francisco,
whose cases were reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention this week in 1983. The UN said more than 25 million people
have died of AIDS since then and more than 42 million people are now
living with HIV worldwide.
Fauci said there have been about 50,000 new cases of infections in
the United States each year and the counting methodology has become
more precise than years ago. But Fauci, a scientist involved in the
fight against HIV/AIDS for many years, said infections have reached a
plateau and about 12 per cent of new infections are African Americans.
He said the real problem in the US is about getting access to
treatment, which he termed as a 'significant problem' particularly in
inner cities.
Fauci said infections in Western Europe are less than 1 per cent
of the population in each country while above 1 per cent in Eastern
Europe.
The UN reported that some progress has been made toward its goal
of halting and reversing the spread of AIDS by 2015. But it said also
that new cases of infections - 2.5 million last year - outpaced all
efforts to provide anti-retroviral treatment in poor countries. A
total of 1 million people received the treatment last year.
Germany's Minister of Health Ulla Schmidt warned in a prepared
speech that the UN goal of providing access to treatment to infected
people may not be reached by 2010, another UN benchmark goal on
treatment. She said the world's eight most industrialized nations, or
G-8, decided last year to provide 60 billion dollars to fight
HIV/AIDS, including 4 billion euros (6.2 billion dollars) from
Germany by 2015.
She said Germany plans to contribute 600 million euros by 2010.
'In this process, political leadership is vital and has to be
assumed by heads of state and government unambiguously, in order to
build up infrastructure and to overcome discrimination, including
HIV-specific travel restrictions,' she said.
The world spent 10 billion dollars last year to fight the
epidemic.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon opened the high-level discussion,
calling for scaling up the levels of commitment and financing by
governments in order for the UN to halt new cases of infections by
2015.
'How we fare in fighting AIDS will impact all our efforts to cut
poverty and improve nutrition, reduce child mortality and improve
maternal health, curb the spread of malaria and tuberculosis,' he
said.
The UN conference was called to review progress made and map new
strategies to reach the 2015 deadline.
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