AIDS is not in recession : efforts must be maintained

[20 July 2009 - 14h30]
[mis à jour le 26 August 2009 à 10h50]

If international efforts in support of universal access to antiretroviral treatments is allowed to fall off, “governments and politicians would be responsible for the disaster resulting from their failure to fulfil their undertakings. Because HIV is not in recession…”: these were the words of Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, member of the Pasteur Institute and 2008 Nobel Prize winner for Medicine, speaking in Cape Town (South Africa), following on from Julio Montaner (British Columbia University, Vancouver), president of the International AIDS Society (IAS).

Opening the 5th IAS Conference, the president stressed the fact that efforts in research and treatment of the disease, for everyone and everywhere, “must not be put in abeyance because of the global crisis. If we do not continue with our work we will fall behind, he warned while demonstrators in the streets of Cape Town rallied by the local NGO Treatment Action Campaign called for support from scientists. This movement has been taken up by the majority of national associations and in France by Act-Up Paris in particular.

“Today we have achieved practically 90% success. And this success – marked by an indetectable viral load, indicating effective control of the infection [ed. note] – persists for practically as long as treatment is continued”, Professor Jean-Michel Molina explained to us yesterday in Cape Town. Head of the Infectious Diseases Unit at the Saint-Louis de Paris University Hospital in France, he pointed out however “that much remains to be done, in terms of screening and prevention, and also with regard to therapies”.

Source : from our special correspondents at the 5th IAS Conference, Cape Town, 19-22 July 2009

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