Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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.; Friday July 3 11:33 PM EDT
Patricia Reaney
As a counter added up the number of people infected with the HIV virus around the world -- one every five seconds, 16,000 a day and about 100,000 since the conference began on Sunday -- speakers at the closing session highlighted the inequities in treatment and care between rich and poor nations.
"Millions of children and adults are becoming infected, falling ill and dying without the barest essentials in medical treatment, counseling or social support," Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, said in a video address.
During the meeting the world's leading scientists revealed their latest battle strategies against the disease and pharmaceutical companies produced new weapons -- more potent drugs with fewer side effects.
But medical advances that have prolonged the lives of thousands in rich nations will offer no hope in the developing world where the disease is taking its heaviest toll.
In the absence of a vaccine, at best still years away, most experts agreed prevention was the best means of "bridging the gap" between the haves and have-nots, the theme of the week-long conference.
"This meeting does a great deal to focus the world's attention on one of the most devastating epidemics to afflict the economically poor among us," Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet medical journal, said in a moving speech in which he castigated the drugs industry for not doing more to bridge the gulf between rich and poor.
Scientists and organizers did announce bold initiatives to provide AZT (zidovudine), an effective drug treatment, for mothers in some of the world's poorest countries to prevent them from transmitting the disease to their newborns.
And France pushed forward a controversial international plan for a global fund to supply AIDS drugs in the developing world.
Increased funding and a plan to encourage public and private collaboration also gave a boost to the search for the elusive vaccine that most AIDS experts agree is the only way to stamp out the disease.
The euphoria that greeted the arrival of protease inhibitors at the last AIDS conference in Vancouver two years ago was tempered with the realization that although the potent drugs can reduce the level of the virus in the body they cannot eradicate it.
"The challenge to eliminate HIV from an infected person remains," admitted David Ho, a guru in AIDS research.
Two cases of transmissible strains of the HIV virus resistant to all four of the available protease inhibitors brought home the importance of prevention and adherence to complicated drug regimens that can include up to two dozen pills a day.
Dr. Robert Gallo, one of the discoverers of the virus, said the best hope of winning the war against AIDS was using the body's own defense system and proteins called chemokines, a view echoed by American virologist Jay Levy. Gallo also held out hope that a low-cost therapeutic vaccine, now being tested in Europe, could help millions of AIDS sufferers in poor countries fight off opportunistic infections that are fueled by the HIV virus.
Annan told the meeting that by the time of the 13th World AIDs Conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2000 he hoped that "AIDS is not conquering the world, but that the world is conquering AIDS."
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