Yesterday was World Aids Day so naturally enough I heard, saw, and read a great deal on the subject in the various forms of media available. No one who took in the information given out would have been left in any doubt the number of people who are HIV positive or who have full blown AIDS is a human tragedy; three million have died this year, five million have been infected.
It was also apparent those most affected live in poorer parts of the world and mostly can neither afford nor have access to retroviral drugs. The British Government made pious statements about doubling its funding to UNAIDS to six million pounds – about fifteen pence per head for the forty million currently infected worldwide, and about the same as they spend in one day in Iraq.
UNAIDS itself launched a campaign to get a version of retroviral drugs available to three million of the world’s poorest sufferers by 2005; why in two years, why only three million out of forty million, why not now? All of the talk seemed to be focused on treatment for current suffers with a few references to the usage of condoms to prevent infection. I fully agree sufferers must be helped as with any other infectious disease; however where was the talk of producing vaccines to prevent infection? I heard, saw, and read virtually nothing, apart from a few vague comments about a vaccine being ten years down the road.
When AIDS was first identified the major drugs companies all had a lot to say about the production of a vaccine, some even promising one within a couple of years. As the number of infected people in the Western world grew and became a powerful lobbying group politicians lent on the Pharmaceutical companies to produce drugs that treated the disease. Nothing wrong with that apart from the fact along the way nearly all finances and resources appear to have been diverted to producing retroviral drugs which could only be afforded by some in the West, leaving virtually nothing for research and development work on vaccines.
I imagine a conversation amongst the number crunchers in the Pharmaceutical industry, it goes like this: -
“If we spend our money on producing an effective vaccine each individual will probably only ever need to pay for it once; however if we spend our money on producing retroviral drugs and that same person is infected they will have to pay for our product for the rest of their lives”.
Am I being totally cynical in believing this situation is more about profits than human lives? Personally I think not as these companies are first and foremost profit motivated and are certainly not altruistic institutions. Should in reality our politicians not be putting large funding into the research and production costs of an effective vaccine rather than only supplying pitiful amounts of money to treat those already infected?
It is a tragedy you have to think twice about helping someone who has hurt themselves, and is bleeding for fear their blood may be infected and could get into your own system. It is a tragedy parents in poorer parts of the world can take their child for an injection and end up with an HIV infected child through reuse of the same needle. I am aware this is an emotive subject to discuss; but until an effective vaccine is produced, you, I, our families, our friends, and the whole of mankind is in danger of being infected in the course of our every day lives.
