Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Sydney (Agenzia Fides) - The 4th IAS Conference on Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention closes today in Sydney. The Conference, organised by the International AIDS Society and the Australasian Society for Medicine on HIV is considered one of the most important on the issue.
Five thousand delegates from 133 countries signed a Sydney Declaration calling on governments to put more resources into fighting HIV/AIDS.
The World Health Organisation says that 80% of infected persons unaware of being HIV+. In Africa every day 1,500 children, mostly new born babies, are infected due to insufficient efforts to prevent mother-child AIDS transmission. About 50% of HIV+ babies die before the age of two due to inadequate testing and treatment.
In 2006 at least 20% of the world's 8.3 million infected people lived in the Asian-Pacific region, 5.7 million HIV+ persons in India alone. And today 70% of AIDS patients die without ever receiving treatment. More than two million in developing countries and numbers are increasing because of lack of preventive treatment.
A report by the Doctors without Frontiers Organisation said the prices of second line anti-retroviral therapy for countries with few resources were beginning to come down. But that the new first line combinations better tolerated and therefore recommended by the WHO, cost five times as much. The report said that the introduction of general drugs also with legitimate means of compulsory licences is the best way to guarantee anti-retroviral therapy as it was seen in Brazil and Thailand.
In January 2007 Thailand issued a compulsory licence for importing or locally producing an important second line drug. Hence the need to continue to watch to ensure that health takes priority over trade and to guarantee access to treatment for everyone with HIV/AIDS.(AP) (24/7/2007 Agenzia Fides; Righe:36; Parole:403)
