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AIDS blossoms in the Golden Triangl
- Subject: AIDS blossoms in the Golden Triangl
- From: Winston_Lee@xxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 13:39:00
AIDS blossoms in the Golden Triangle
05:50 a.m. Oct 27, 1997 Eastern
By Jonathan Thatcher
MANILA, Oct 27 (Reuters) - HIV
infections,
already threatening to hit Asia on a
massive scale, are
growing fastest in some of its least
accessible regions
around the notorious Golden Triangle, a
study
released on Monday showed.
``Mobile populations in areas such as the
Golden
Triangle...are highly vulnerable to HIV
infection,'' the
Monitoring of AIDS Pandemic (MAP) network
said,
referring to the region infamous as the
world's chief
source of opium.
MAP, which groups more than 100 HIV and
AIDS
experts from 40 countries, issued its
findings during a
conference in Manila on the human
immunodeficiency
virus, which can lead to acquired immune
deficiency
syndrome.
The Golden Triangle comprises parts of
Burma,
Thailand and Laos but the report said
also affected
were nearby border regions of India and
China as
well as the Mekong delta in Cambodia and
Vietnam.
It pointed to three factors behind the
rise -- unsafe
sex with prostitutes, injected drugs and
increased
mobility of the population.
``Most distinctive are the HIV epidemics
exhibiting
high and increased prevalence...and high
and
increasing incidence...in Cambodia...and
in Myanmar
(Burma),'' it said.
While in Cambodia it was mostly from
unprotected
sex with prostitutes, in Burma the spread
of the
disease has been boosted by users of
injected drugs.
The use of shared needles by drug users
is a common
source of HIV.
In India, which has more HIV infections
than any
other country in the world, the problem
is limited to
specific areas.
Almost 50 percent of known AIDS cases are
in the
state of Maharashtra, the of which is
Bombay.
Another 22 percent are in Tamil Nadu in
southern
India, the report added.
The report follows warnings at the Manila
conference
that Asia could overtake Africa as the
region
worst-hit by the HIV virus.
The seven million Asians thought to carry
HIV could
double by the end of the century, a
United Nations
official said.
MAP Network co-chairman Daniel Tarantola
said it
was crucial to collect more information
to assess the
potential for large-scale epidemics.
But while there was a danger of
underestimating the
problem, overestimating it could prove
counter-productive.
``Deceived by overstated predictions,
governments
may turn their back and simply walk away
from
emerging epidemics when the predicted
extensive
spread of HIV in the population does not
become a
reality,'' Tarantola said.
***Related Article
Full story
Doctors: AIDS Vaccine May Have First
Test
03:54 p.m Oct 27, 1997 Eastern
By Ruben Alabastro
MANILA, Philippines (Reuters) - The
world's first
mass test of a vaccine against the virus
that causes
AIDS may be held in Thailand possibly as
early as
2000, medical experts at an international
AIDS
congress said Monday.
They said tests would be voluntary and
conducted
among people most exposed to the danger
of
acquiring AIDS, such as prostitutes and
intravenous
drug users.
``There's a good possibility that the
first vaccine
efficacy trial ever conducted in the
world will be
conducted in Asia and specifically
Thailand,'' said Dr.
Margaret Johnston, scientific director of
the
U.S.-based International AIDS Vaccine
Initiative
(IAVI).
An efficacy trial is intended to show if
the vaccine
works on humans, Johnston said.
She said it was hard to say exactly when
such a mass
trial could be carried out because
initial tests on small
groups, to find out how safe the vaccine
was, had not
been completed.
``But if everything is safe and
everything works...the
first efficacy trial could start in
Thailand perhaps in the
year 2000, perhaps,'' she told a news
conference.
``That's going to require a lot of
factors...The trial
itself will take three or four years so
we could have a
vaccine in 10 years.''
``It will probably involve many thousands
of people,
high risk individuals...The numbers will
probably be in
several thousands,'' Johnston said.
IAVI is a private group of scientists and
medical
experts trying to develop a vaccine that
would
immunize people against the Human
Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that can
lead to
Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
(AIDS).
About 23 million people were estimated to
be
carrying the HIV/AIDS virus as of end
1996 and
some experts said the number could double
by 2000.
No vaccine has been developed to combat
HIV or
cure AIDS itself despite years of
research costing
millions of dollars, experts said.
World leaders have joined in the
anti-AIDS
campaign. President Clinton in May called
for the
development of an AIDS vaccine within the
decade.
Prasert Thongcharoen, a Thai virologist
and director
of the Collaborating Center on AIDS of
the World
Health Organization (WHO), said his
country was
willing to host the first anti-HIV
vaccine mass.
Thailand, which has about 800,000 HIV
cases as of
last year, is one of the countries
hardest hit by the
epidemic.
Prasert said many Thais were willing to
volunteer for
such a trial.
``We could not wait for Western countries
to do this
for us. The problem (in) the West is less
and less but
not in our country, not in Asia,'' he
told Reuters.
Disclosure about the proposed mass test
coincided
with controversy over some AIDS trials
for pregnant
women in Africa in which subjects
received only
placebos and no drugs.
The trials were designed to see if drug
treatments
could stop pregnant women from passing on
the HIV
virus to their babies. Some groups
criticized the trials
saying it was unfair to withhold
potentially life-saving
therapy from anybody.
Johnston said the mass trial would
involve dividing
volunteers from high-risk sectors into
two groups
which would be intensively counseled on
how to
avoid the infection.
One group would get the vaccine and the
other would
not.
``You follow them over a period of years
and see if
the group that got the vaccine have less
infections than
the group that didn't get the vaccine.
Then you know
that the vaccine works.''
Johnston did not say if the two groups
would be told
beforehand that one of them would not get
the
vaccine.
A study released Monday showed HIV
infections,
already threatening to hit Asia on a
massive scale,
were growing fastest in some of its least
accessible
regions around the notorious
heroin-producing
Golden Triangle.
``Mobile populations in areas such as the
Golden
Triangle...are highly vulnerable to HIV
infection,'' the
Monitoring of AIDS Pandemic (MAP) network
said,
referring to the region infamous as the
world's chief
source of opium.
MAP, which groups more than 100 HIV and
AIDS
experts from 40 countries, issued its
findings at the
Manila conference.
The Golden Triangle comprises parts of
Burma,
Thailand and Laos but the report said
also affected
were nearby border regions of India and
China as
well as the Mekong delta in Cambodia and
Vietnam.
It pointed to three factors behind the
rise -- unsafe
sex with prostitutes, injected drugs and
increased
mobility of the population.
//End//