Subject: CDC NCHSTP Daily News Update Date: Tue Mar 14 7:10:04 PST 2000 (168 lines) From: National AIDS Info Clearinghouse Copyright 2000, Information, Inc., Bethesda, MD CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update Tuesday, March 14, 2000 The CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention provides the following information as a public service only. Providing synopses of key scientific articles and lay media reports on HIV/AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis does not constitute CDC endorsement. This daily update also includes information from CDC and other government agencies, such as background on Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) articles, fact sheets, press releases, and announcements. Reproduction of this text is encouraged; however, copies may not be sold, and the CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update should be cited as the source of the information. Contact the sources of the articles abstracted below for full texts of the articles. HEADLINES GENERAL MEDIA "AIDS Proves Deadlier Than War in Africa" "AIDS Microbicide Likely to Be Available Before Vaccine: UNAIDS" "New Vaccines for the Poor" "South Africa AIDS Activists Press Pfizer to Drop Prices" "Hutchison Proposes Border Health Agency" "$6 Million for HIV Studies" "Report Says Disease Is Security Threat" "Nigerian Government Warns Public Against Claims Over AIDS Cure" "Advancing on AIDS" **************************************************************** GENERAL MEDIA **************************************************************** "AIDS Proves Deadlier Than War in Africa" Washington Times (www.washtimes.com) (03/14/00) P. A15 United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday that AIDS has taken the lives of more Africans in the past year than have all the wars on the continent. Annan called on governments to take action against the epidemic and noted, "We must end the conspiracy of silence, the shame over this issue." "AIDS Microbicide Likely to Be Available Before Vaccine: UNAIDS" Agence France Presse (03/14/00) Dr. Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, said Monday that he expects there will be an HIV-killing microbicide available before there is a preventative vaccine. During a speech at the Microbicides 2000 conference in Washington, D.C., Piot urged more pharmaceutical companies to search for a microbicide that would kill the virus before it infects the body. Currently, 36 microbicides are in preclinical studies, nearly two dozen are set for safety trials in humans, and three more are being considered for Phase III tests. "New Vaccines for the Poor" New York Times (www.nytimes.com) (03/14/00) P. A28 President Clinton's new budget includes a plan that would encourage pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines for poor nations, note the editors of the New York Times. Millions of people die every year from AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis; the majority of these individuals are poor and cannot pay for drug treatments. Under Clinton's proposal, drug companies would receive a targeted tax credit as an incentive for vaccine research. The companies would be given one dollar of credit for each dollar of sales of new vaccines they make to nonprofit groups in poor nations. The plan should cost $1 billion for nine years and would be restricted to new vaccines for malaria and infectious diseases that kill over 1 million people a year. "South Africa AIDS Activists Press Pfizer to Drop Prices" Reuters (03/13/00); Sithole, Emelia South African AIDS activists are calling on Pfizer to lower the price of fluconazole, which helps prevent and treat thrush and cryptococcal meningitis, two opportunistic infections linked to HIV. According to the activists, the drug company has one week to respond to the demand, or it could face industrial action and lobbying from groups like ACT UP and Medecins Sans Frontieres. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) also plans to urge the South African government to allow imports of the drug and generic versions to be sold as well. In South Africa, fluconazole is sold under patent at a wholesale price of 57 rand per 200 mg capsule to the private sector and 37 rand to public services; however, TAC said that most public hospitals and workers could not afford the daily dose of up to 400 mg, and it called on Pfizer to lower the cost to less than four rand per 200 mg for the public sector. "Hutchison Proposes Border Health Agency" United Press International (03/13/00) Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) proposed on Monday forming an independent U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission to prevent the spread of diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and hepatitis into the United States. The commission, which would be located in El Paso, would be part of the National Institutes of Health. Hutchison, noting the high rate of hepatitis deaths and TB infection among the residents of the border area of Texas, said the state "is on the front line of a battle to halt the spread of these diseases before they threaten people throughout the state and nation." "$6 Million for HIV Studies" Hartford Courant Online (www.ctnow.com) (03/14/00); Frahm, Robert A. Yale University and the University of Connecticut have received $6 million to help enroll HIV patients in studies to fight the disease. One study will try to reduce the spread of HIV via improved doctor-patient counseling, while the other will enroll hundreds of HIV-infected drug users in a peer-counseling program. According to Dr. Gerald Friedland of the AIDS program at Yale, one of the objectives is to identify people who do not know they are infected. "With the wonderful benefits of HIV therapy, it's very important to bring them into care," Friedland said. New statistics from the Connecticut Department of Health show that AIDS patients in the state are living longer, AIDS-related deaths have dropped significantly, and the number of reported AIDS cases fell to 600 in 1999. "Report Says Disease Is Security Threat" Washington Times (www.washtimes.com) (03/13/00) P. A10; Smith, Geoffrey A new report, "Contagion and Conflict: Health as a Global Security Challenge," from the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, directly links health and global security for the first time. The report asserts that national security can be hurt by disease outbreaks, as biological terrorism becomes a worldwide security challenge first pondered after the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo sarin nerve-gas attack in Tokyo. AIDS and drought can now harm a country more than war, as it can take weeks to decipher an outbreak, or decades, in the case of AIDS. It has only been for about a decade that disease has been viewed as an issue of national security, starting when Saddam Hussein was known to stockpile chemical weapons during the Gulf War. Infectious diseases can decimate a population and can spread quickly with the ease of plane travel. According to the report, which said that "the presence of infectious diseases in military populations jeopardizes military readiness," armies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are at particular risk for personnel losses due to AIDS. The report also noted that a weakening of U.S. economic strength could render the country vulnerable to disease outbreaks. "Nigerian Government Warns Public Against Claims Over AIDS Cure" Agence France Presse (03/13/00) The Nigerian government is warning the public to be aware of claims that promote a cure for HIV and AIDS. At least three people have recently said they found a cure, and the government is concerned that desperate people may rely on so-called cures that have not been authenticated. The government is currently investigating some of the claims, but said that until they are "conclusively verified, individuals should be cautious about such claims to cure." "Advancing on AIDS" Discover (www.discover.com) (03/00) Vol. 21, No. 3, P. 16; Glausiusz, Josie A new AIDS drug candidate called T-20 works by mimicking a coiled protein molecule that HIV moves in order to enter a cell and infect it. T-20 can block the entry point for HIV, making it so "the host cell and the virus can't come close enough together to fuse, explains biochemist Sam Hopkins of Trimeris Inc., which is working of the product. A 16-week trial of 55 subjects who had tried all other treatments revealed significant reductions in HIV concentration in the blood for nearly two-thirds of the patients, with many keeping the virus at undetectable levels. One drawback is that because T-20 is a protein, it would have to be injected two times a day.