Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International - Monday, February 21, 2000
Rodolfo A. Windhausen
The program initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is aimed at increasing "international cooperation in the face of mounting urgency as the epidemic spreads," according to a U.N. statement released Monday in New York and Geneva .
Dr. Barry Bloom, dean of the U.S.-based Harvard School of Public Health, will head the new WHO-UNAIDS advisory committee.
Dr. Jose Esparza, the coordinator of the new drive, told reporters the initiative provides for an independent forum in which industry experts, as well as researchers and communities, "can identify common ground for collaboration" in developing the vaccine.
Esparza said the large number of HIV strains and of vaccines being tested around the world make it imperative to coordinate efforts on a global scale.
These efforts "require concentrated international coordination and collaboration, with the full involvement of industrialized and developing countries, the public and private sectors, governmental and non governmental organizations and the pharmaceutical industry," he said.
Less than 20 years after it was identified, AIDS has become the world's most prominent infectious disease. In Africa, it already is the first cause of deaths and it has turned into the world's fourth cause of people dying. More than 15,000 new HIV infections happen every day, most of them in developing countries.
The World Health Organization has estimated that more than 33 million people live with HIV or AIDS around the world.
In 1991, the WHO spearheaded the development of a vaccine involving Brazil, Thailand and Uganda. The initiative created a framework "to conduct vaccine trials under the highest technical and ethical standards," according to the WHO document.
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