Scientists grope for small gains at AIDS meetings

Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

U.S. Health Secretary Tommy Thompson may be boldly talking about a cure for AIDS, but not the researchers meeting in Chicago this week at a conference that bills itself as the top scientific meeting on HIV.

In a speech to staff on Friday, Thompson spoke of curing AIDS and pledged to fight for funding so the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. medical research agency, could work toward this goal.

"I think the best thing that I can do and this department can do is to find a cure for HIV, and that is the best and ultimate solution to a lot of our health problems," said Thompson, the former governor of Wisconsin.

But two decades into the epidemic, it has become crystal-clear to AIDS researchers that there is no curing this virus any time soon, and keeping it under control is getting more complicated, particularly with all the side-effects that the complex HIV drug cocktails cause.

And of course the continent with the biggest AIDS problem — Africa — has little hope of getting enough drugs to treat its people at all. More than 25 million people in Africa are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The best hope is a vaccine, but that is years away and will not help people who already have the HIV infection and the millions of orphans they leave behind.

So when some of the world’s top experts on AIDS meet in Chicago this week at the 8th Annual Retrovirus Conference they will talk about what they can do — such as develop new drugs to treat the lucky few patients who can afford them, or whose government can afford them.

Furthest along the road to market are the fusion inhibitors, notably Trimeris Inc.’s T-20 and T-1249, injectable drugs being developed with Roche that stop the HIV virus from attaching to the cells it attacks.

They will talk about the best drug regimens for patients. The U.S. Health Department will release new guidelines that recommend holding back drug cocktails until infection reaches a certain level, so people do not develop resistant virus in their bodies.

A return to risky behavior

The scientists will discuss their fears that people are spreading HIV again through risky behaviors such as unprotected sex, and how they are starting to spread drug-resistant forms of the virus.

"There are a number of studies being presented that find increased HIV transmission risk behavior among some demographic groups," Dr. Constance Benson of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and chair of the meeting’s scientific committee told reporters in a telephone briefing.

"That is certainly worrisome to people," added vice-chair Dr. David Ho of New York’s Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center.

Dr. Kevin DeCock of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta was to stress in an opening speech on Sunday that, in order to even start protecting Africans against HIV, the continent’s entre health system will need restructuring.

Experts likely will welcome the South African government’s decision, made under considerable pressure, to give HIV drugs to pregnant women so they do not infect their babies.

But DeCock will point out that in most areas there is no mechanism for identifying HIV-positive women, basic necessities such as running water are lacking, and infants are vulnerable to other preventable infections such as malaria.