AIDS experts caution about hope for cure
New treatments the talk at AIDS conference
July 7, 1996
Web posted at: 11:30 p.m. EDT (0330 GMT)VANCOUVER, British Columbia (CNN) -- The world's largest AIDS conference began Sunday amid high hopes that recent breakthroughs in AIDS treatment will lead to a cure. Top officials, however, warned against too much optimism.
The warning came as 15,000 delegates -- including AIDS activists and research scientists from 125 countries -- gathered for the 11th International Conference on AIDS in Vancouver. The conference will run through July 12.
Optimism for about an AIDS cure has picked up in the last six months due to a variety of new drug treatments. The treatments show promise -- at least in the short term -- for keeping the AIDS virus in check.
"Nobody can call AIDS an inevitably fatal, incurable disease anymore. There is hope, but let's not exaggerate."
-- Dr. Peter Piot, head of the United Nations AIDS program
"Let's not switch from very dark pessimism to hype and over-optimism so we will all have a hangover within six months or a year," said Dr. Peter Piot, head of the United Nations AIDS program, as he addressed the conference.
Martin Schechter, the conference co-chair, said: "We don't want the pendulum to swing so far over that we have again the state of very unrealistic expectations that will leave people bitterly disappointed."
The treatments
While researchers cast their warnings, a cheerful mood prevailed, unlike at earlier conferences in Berlin and Yokohama, Japan. Piot told the crowd that the positive atmosphere was refreshing and well-earned.
The main hope revolves around new drugs called protease inhibitors, which block an enzyme crucial to the multiplication of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Tests so far show that when the protease inhibitors are combined with two older AIDS drugs, the virus appears to stop reproducing.
People have been taking various three-drug combinations for about 18 months, and in many -- but not all -- cases, HIV disappears from the bloodstream.
It is unclear how effective the treatments will be in the long term, and no one is sure whether the elusive virus will develop resistance to the inhibitors. Still, the new treatment is a breakthrough.
"We are helping (AIDS patients) to live longer as opposed to merely easing pain and other symptoms," said AIDS expert Brian Gazzard.
However, Dr. Michael V. O'Shaughnessy, another conference organizer, advised caution. "Keep the hyperbole in perspective," he told reporters. "There will be a lot of overstatement of results."
Drugs are costly
Even if the new treatments work as well as researchers hope, Piot noted they are likely to be of little use to most of the world's HIV-infected people, who cannot afford to pay $10,000 to $15,000 per year for them.
According to U.N. figures, 21 million people are living with HIV, 90 percent of them in developing countries. Every day, 8,500 more people -- including 1,000 children -- become infected.
Piot added that despite "solid grounds for hope," the worldwide epidemic remains "huge, unstable and mostly invisible."
Demonstrators, meanwhile, reminded conference delegates first hand of the urgency of the disease. Some waved banners that read: "Keep your eye on a cure. I'm dying for an answer."
CNN Correspondent Dan Rutz, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Related stories:
- HIV rate stable but unacceptable, CDC says - July 7, 1996
- AIDS drug shows promise - February 1, 1996
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