HEALTH: European Funds for AIDS Vaccine Falling Short

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

BREMEN, Germany, Mar 15 2007 (IPS) - The European Union (EU) must substantially increase financial resources for research on a vaccine against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS, leading non- governmental activists say.

Ann Katrin Akalin, spokesperson of the German AIDS Foundation, says the EU is contributing only six percent of the world’s total public financing for research on a vaccine. “This is too little,” Akalin told IPS.

“The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) estimates that about 1.2 billion dollars are needed yearly for financing the research,” Akalin said. “As late as 2005, only 760 million dollars were available for this research.”

In all 88 percent of this money was channeled by governments, mostly the United States which contributes 92 percent of official resources for vaccine research.

Akalin raised the question at the EU conference on AIDS ‘Partnership and Responsibility’ that was held Mar. 12-13 in Bremen, some 350 km northwest of Berlin.

The conference was attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, health ministers of all 27 EU member states, by Peter Piot, director of the United Nations special programme on AIDS (UNAIDS), and by well over 500 health activists and experts from Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America. It was organised by the German government as part of its drive to promote health as present EU president.

Activists insisted that development of a vaccine against HIV is one of the major challenges in the fight against AIDS. “Other viral diseases, such as polio and smallpox, were eradicated when an effective vaccine was developed,” Ulrich Heide, director of the German AIDS Foundation, said in a speech at the conference.

The IAVI estimates that a vaccine could be available at the earliest in ten years time. As of June 2006, there were some 30 ongoing trials in 20 countries, with advanced testing now taking place or planned for several candidates.

Much of this research is being conducted in Africa and Asia, where most new HIV infections are occurring. Over the past couple of years, clinical teams from India, China, Rwanda and Zambia have launched their own HIV vaccine trials.

The IAVI estimates that in a conservative scenario, an effective HIV vaccine could prevent up to 30 million of the 150 million new infections projected in the coming decades. A highly effective vaccine could prevent more than 70 million infections in 15 years.

“There are numerous problems blocking the development of a vaccine,” Akalin told IPS. “On the one side, the financial resources are not enough, on the other side, the HIV mutates very rapidly, making the development of inoculation substances very difficult.”

Activists participating at the conference called the HIV pandemic the worst medical crisis since the 14th century. In 2006, more than 39 million people were living with HIV worldwide. Over four million people became newly infected with HIV and an estimated 2.8 million lost their lives to AIDS.

As of January 2006, UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation estimate that the disease has killed more than 25 million people since it was first recognised in 1981.

Despite the recent progress in increasing access to treatment and prevention programmes, HIV continues to outpace the global response. At least 80 percent of those in clinical need of antiretroviral treatment worldwide do not receive it.

Merkel said that Germany, as current president of the EU and of the Group of Eight most industrialised nations (G8) would ensure that the fight against AIDS is placed high on the international agenda of both groups during the coming months.

“The struggle against the disease is a task for all of mankind and should not be treated as a problem for individual nations,” Merkel told the conference in Bremen.

Germany is strengthening an anti-AIDS programme within the country. Health minister Ulla Schmidt announced new programmes to raise HIV and AIDS awareness among immigrants and frequent travellers. “Our action plan emphasises the need to implement preventive measures for these specific groups of the population,” Schmidt said.

“We’re going to offer special measures for immigrants. We need to take into account their different cultural backgrounds and the fact that many of these people don’t have a sufficient command of the German language to understand anti-AIDS (publicity) spots for native Germans.”

Schmidt also emphasised that recent advances in AIDS treatment had led many Europeans, especially young people, both homosexual and heterosexual, to become imprudent in their sexual practices.

This carelessness is increasingly reflected in the growing reluctance to use condoms, and in a return of casual sexual practices, leading to an increase in other sexually transmitted diseases.

But AIDS too is growing within Europe. Eastern European and international AIDS experts called attention at the conference to growing rates of HIV transmission in countries like Ukraine and Russia, especially among young drug addicts, homosexuals and prostitutes.

Almost a third of newly diagnosed HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are among people aged 15-24. Russia and Ukraine account for approximately 90 percent of all people infected with the virus in the region.

Peter Piot urged the EU to step up efforts to help combat the disease in Eastern Europe. “The EU and Germany do a lot for developing countries, but not enough for their neighbours,” he said.

Schmidt said talks would begin with affected countries in Eastern Europe in the coming months about price levels of AIDS drugs.

The conference concluded with the signing of the Bremen Declaration agreeing, among other things, “to provide the political leadership on a national, European and international level” to fight the epidemic.