HIV/AIDS treatment; prevention warnings

The introduction of new treatment and antiretroviral therapy forHIV/AIDS has been accompanied by a slight increase in the number of new cases of infection in western Europe and North America, according to Peter Piot, head of the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

He told a meeting of the UNAIDS coordinating board that there has been a "clear failure of prevention efforts in western Europe and North America" relating to the virus, while at the same time vigorous national campaigns are beginning to stem the spread of the disease in badly-affected countries. Numbers of new infections among young people, which is the critical barometer, are declining in Uganda, Zambia, Tanzania, South Africa, Cambodia and the Bahamas, he said, and India is expected to follow suit.

Meantime, Mathilde Krim, chairman of the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amFAR), has told a meeting held to mark the 20 years since the first HIV/AIDS cases were reported in the USA that current combination therapies can extend people's lives. However, Dr Krim added that the limitations of such treatments underscore the need for increased funding for the development of new anti-HIV drugs and methods of restoring immune system function in HIV-infected individuals, because of the development of drug-resistant strains of HIV, the drugs' side effects that preclude their long-term use and the continued susceptibility of HIV-infected people to potentially lethal opportunistic infections.