British scientists will lead the biggest-ever international effort to develop a new class of drugs which could curb the spread of HIV.
The EU has awarded more than ?7.4 million (US$13.6 million) to a project to develop new microbicides, drugs which can prevent the transmission of HIV during sexual intercourse. It is the largest commitment of funds to this kind of work and will be shared among an international consortium of uni-versities, research institutes and biotechnology companies.
Charles Kelly, an immunologist at King's College, London, and Robin Shattock, a researcher in infectious diseases at St George's hospital, London, joint coordinators of the project, said the money marked a "sea change" in a technology which has so far been ignored by big pharmaceutical com-panies but which had the potential to prevent millions of HIV infections.
The award also comes at a time when interest in microbicides will be focused at a meeting of scientists from around the world in London next weekend.
According to the UN, 16,000 people around the world are infected every day with HIV, the majority via unprotected sex. Current strategies of HIV prevention are referred to as the ABC of prevention: abstain, be monogamous and use a condom.
Microbicides could be an important new tool in this strategy. A relatively new idea in HIV prevention, they are drugs formulated as gels or creams applied vaginally or rectally to prevent infection.
Almost 60 potential types of microbicide are at various stages of development around the world. They all stop transmission of HIV in different ways: some prevent the virus from attaching to and infecting human cells; some use chemicals to kill or disable the virus; and others enhance the body's defenses.
If developed successfully, they would have an enormous impact in preventing the spread of HIV. Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has shown that a drug which was only 60 percent effective could prevent 2.5 million infections worldwide over three years, even if only 20 percent of the people with access to it used it half the time they did not use condoms.
The UKCM said that, in 2002, almost 50 percent of those infected with HIV globally were women, many infected by their husbands or sole sexual partner.
Scientists agree that a vaccine would be the perfect solution to the pandemic. But this is at least several decades away and, according to Jonathon Weber, an HIV specialist at Imperial College London, there is not even a leading candidate.
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