Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc.; Sunday, June 28, 1998 06:43:00 PM
Greg Calhoun

"The essential message of the Geneva meeting is that, while much of the developed world is making progress in slowing the HIV infection and treating those with HIV disease, enormous regions of the world, which are home to literally billions of people, are being allowed to slip further and further behind," conference chairman Bernard Hirschel said in a statement.

Some 90 percent of those infected with AIDS and HIV living in developing countries thus far have been virtually untouched by medical advances and are only now beginning to try and dramatically step up prevention.

They are also missing out on expensive life-prolonging drug therapies.

"Millions of people are becoming infected with HIV in the developing world every year -- 10 million since we last met two years ago," Hirschel said in the statement ahead of the opening of the conference.

More than 12,000 doctors, research scientists, activists, people with HIV, drug company representatives and journalists at this year's conference are gathering to compare notes about the fight against the epidemic which has claimed nearly 12 million lives since the early 1980s and is predicted to afflict some 40 million people by 2000.

But unlike the conference in Vancouver two years ago, there will be no dramatic news about new treatment breakthroughs or hopes of an imminent vaccine or cure.

Instead, participants this year will talk about prevention and about spreading the wealth.

"The developed world has access to information, expertise, medical technology, and financial resources that, if shared, can help avert the global catastrophe that will result from allowing HIV/AIDS to spread through much of our planet unchecked," Hirschel said.

News last Tuesday that large-scale testing of a vaccine to fight the virus had begun in the United States is likely to stir a debate during the six-day conference in Geneva.

But few if any of the many doctors and researchers here in Geneva for the conference are likely to say they expect a rapid breakthrough in vaccines.

Some of the major drug companies will talk about their efforts to reduce the pile of up to 25 tablets taken every day to just one or two.

Data on three major new drugs will be presented in Geneva -- Glaxo Wellcome's reverse transcriptase inhibitor Abacavir, DuPont Merck's non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor Sustiva, and Abbott Laboratories Inc's protease inhibitor ABT-378. All three can probably be taken once or twice a day.

They will also discuss the current fight against disfiguring and debilitating side-effects emerging in many patients taking a potent class of drugs known as protease inhibitors which prevent HIV-infected cells from maturing, replicating and infecting new cells.

Some of the main discussion topics scheduled for the conference will be new prevention strategies, new and emerging epidemics and biomedical advances.

Topics such as global rights issues and public funding priorities and how they are impacting the fight against the deadly disease will also be discussed.

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