Mexico City - The scientist who will serve as co-president
of the XVII International AIDS Conference from August 3 to 8 in
Mexico City says it is high time the biennial conference comes to the
region - and emphasizes the importance of the theme, 'Universal
Action Now.'
'The last word is important, because we all have to act together
and we have to act now,' Luis E Soto-Ramirez told Deutsche Presse-
Agentur dpa.
Soto-Ramirez, head of molecular virology at the department of
infectious diseases in Mexico's National Institute of Medical
Science, stressed the need to get priorities right in the fight
against AIDS, and noted that 'the world has wasted a lot of time.'
'We do not have a vaccine, we do not have a cure. But with the
weapons we have today we can do a global campaign for prevention
first and treatment second. That is something the world is
unfortunately looking at the wrong way around, and that is a serious
mistake,' Soto-Ramirez said.
Scientists have tried new things and learned from mistakes, he
said, but he admitted there is 'stagnation' and that the current
vaccine research is based on the wrong ideas.
His comments echoed the recent decisions by Merck pharmaceuticals
and the US publicly-funded AIDS research institute to suspend further
testing of two unconventional vaccines which aimed to reduce the HIV
count in people who became infected. Those vaccines emerged after
decades of frustration in the search for a traditional vaccine to
induce antibodies against the virus.
'If you inject HIV in millions of people, they are going to
'misbehave,' to have irresponsible sex, because they feel protected.
This is going to lead to re-combinations of the virus, and (the
vaccine) stops working,' Soto-Ramirez told dpa.
The conference co-chair called for an equilibrium between private
and public initiatives, so that they would continue to fund crucial
vaccine research.
'In apocalyptic scenarios, if you create an effective vaccine you
are going to sell it to Europe, the United States and Canada. And
what about everyone else? The creators are going to end up giving the
patent to the World Health Organization for free, because African
governments will not be able to buy it for all their inhabitants. So
it is not a (private) business, it is a business for humanity.'
The United Nations says the numbers of AIDS deaths and infections
have declined in the last decade, but new infections worldwide have
far outpaced efforts to provide anti-retroviral treatment to
patients.
UN health programmes provided anti-retroviral treatment to an
additional 1 million people in 2007, but in the same year a total of
2.5 million people became infected with the AIDS virus.
Africa still has the lion's share of the world's 33.2 million
HIV/AIDS cases, and 'the data that are issuing from India and China
really are shocking,' Soto-Ramirez noted.
But he is critical of the fact that it has taken so long for the
conference to come to Latin America, which he says is 'half way'
compared with the rest of the world.
'We are not Africa, with virtually no access to treatment and so
many cases. But we are also not the developed country which has open
access to medication, with no cost impacts,' he said.
'We are in an intermediate part with very particular problems.
Migration and AIDS and HIV is one of them.'
'Given that so many in Latin America and the Caribbean have died
from HIV/AIDS and have fought this disease with the same enthusiasm
and passion as in any part of Africa and Asia, there seems no
justification for this lack of attention,' he wrote in a recent
editorial in Science magazine.
Latin America's AIDS epidemic varies by country and population - a
reflection of the cultural, ethnic and geographic diversity of Latin
America and the Caribbean.
The largest number of HIV cases are through sexual transmission,
generally among the most vulnerable populations, such as prostitutes
in Honduras, Suriname, Guyana, Guatemala and El Salvador.
Men who have sex with men represent a quarter of the new
infections in Latin America and half of the new cases in Brazil,
while the Caribbean countries have a mainly heterosexual epidemic
partly due to the demand for sexual tourism, according to the non-
profit Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Caribbean is the second-most affected region in the world
after Africa, with an HIV prevalence of 1 per cent of the population.
That same rate prevails in smaller countries in the region such as
Honduras, Panama, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The region as a whole grapples with complex issues related to
poverty, migration, absence of leadership in some countries,
homophobia, gender-based violence, little research on HIV
transmission patterns and the resistance to promote condoms.
Since HIV is largely sexually transmitted, condoms are 'the only
functioning method' of prevention, Soto-Ramirez said.
'Therein lies the first factor that blocks all efforts - the
individuality of each person's sexuality. Everyone exercises
sexuality in a different way. Sex is instinctive, and it sometimes
pulls us away from logical reasoning,' he said.
'To this, you have to add other aspects that surround sexuality,
like moral aspects, religion, social stigmatization. Homosexuality
remains very stigmatized still.'
He saw a 'greater danger' in what he termed 'non-permissive
societies,' among which he singled out the Muslim world, because they
provide 'fewer chances for protection.'
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