AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Sat, 8 Sep 2001

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Sat, 8 Sep 2001
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* Tanzania to Expel Two South Africans For Importing 'Controversial'
  AIDS Drug
* Under New Application Process, Boehringer-Ingelheim Begins Shipping
  Free Doses of AIDS Drug to African Nations
* 'Africa' Eight-Part Series to Touch on HIV/AIDS
* AIDS Vaccine 2001 Conference Optimistic Over Vaccine Progress, New
  Vaccine Candidates, But Success in Monkeys May Not Translate to Hu-
  mans


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Tanzania to Expel Two South Africans For Importing 'Controversial' 
AIDS Drug

The Tanzanian government has ordered two South Africans, charged with 
illegally importing the "controversial" AIDS drug Virodene PO 58 and 
four other drugs, to leave the country by Saturday, the Dar es Salaam 
Daily News reports. According to Tomric News Agency/AllAfrica.com, 
Jacques Siegfried Visser and Khamalo Bafana are employed by Virodene 
Pharmaceutical Limited of South Africa, which has been conducting 
"disputed" clinical trials of Virodene PO 58 at the Lugalo Military 
Hospital in Dar es Salaam without the approval of the National Insti-
tute for Medical Research. The two South Africans were arrested in 
July, and Pharmacy Board inspectors confiscated and impounded all 
documents relating to the drugs, as well as any remaining batches of 
PO 58, which was banned in South Africa in 1997. The drug has failed 
to prove effective in clinical tests in Great Britain and Germany, 
where it was determined that the drug was a derivative of the indus-
trial solvent dimethylformamide (DMF), a finding that was met with 
"widespread public outcry" in Tanzania (Tomric News Agency/ All Af-
rica.com, 9/5). Visser maintained that institute approval was not 
necessary because his group had "worked closely" with the Tanzanian 
military and police to test the drug on 64 HIV patients. He added 
that the trial, held in Dar es Salaam between September 2000 and 
March 2001, was "properly approved" and "conducted with the highest 
ethical standards" (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 8/15). According to 
Tomric News Agency/AllAfrica.com, after failing to win approval for 
PO 58, Virodene also imported the drugs PO 59, PO 60, PO 61 and PO 
62, none of which were registered with the Tanzanian Pharmacy Board 
(Tomric News Agency/AllAfrica.com, 9/5).


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Under New Application Process, Boehringer-Ingelheim Begins Shipping 
Free Doses of AIDS Drug to African Nations

German drug company Boehringer-Ingelheim has "finally" determined a 
way to make good on its offer to provide for free its drug Viramune 
to help various nations prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, the 
Wall Street Journal reports. Since the company announced its offer 
last year, it has been "frustrated" that few countries or health pro-
grams have come forward to accept the offer. But a new application 
process developed by Dublin-based Axios International "addresses sev-
eral major stumbling blocks that have impeded access to Viramune," 
the Journal reports. Under the application process, governments and 
private not-for-profit organizations must demonstrate that they can 
"manage the logistics of getting the medicines to the patients who 
need them." Axios CEO Joseph Saba said that the process "allows us to 
help determine how many mothers they can serve, and to overcome ob-
stacles, such as import licenses and duties, that had been in the 
way." Boehringer-Ingelheim already has shipped 18,600 doses of the 
drug to eight health programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 
Rwanda, Zambia, Uganda, Senegal and Zimbabwe and expects to ship an-
other 31,400 doses to seven health centers in six other countries. 
The company is reviewing applications from other programs, including 
some in South Africa (Waldholz, Wall Street Journal, 9/7).


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'Africa' Eight-Part Series to Touch on HIV/AIDS

Beginning Sept. 9, PBS will air an eight-part series called "Africa," 
which examines the people and the land of the continent, the Los An-
geles Times reports. The first installment of the series will air on 
Sunday, with additional segments airing each Sunday for the next 
eight weeks. Filmmaker Jennifer Lawson, executive producer of the se-
ries, said she wanted the series to "provide a different sense" of 
Africa than what Americans are exposed to in media news reports. She 
said, "Here (in America) we often hear only of Africa through the 
news of the AIDS tragedy in South Africa ... or the diamond killings 
in Sierra Leone. ... We don't hear anything about the positive accom-
plishments that are taking place in Africa." The last episode of the 
series profiles Xoliswa Vanda, the first black woman to earn a blast-
ing license in the gold mines in South Africa. Vanda said that the 
mining industry in South Africa is plagued with several problems, in-
cluding HIV/AIDS among workers. "HIV and AIDS is the biggest problem 
in Africa, but not just in South Africa ... all over the world," 
Vanda said. The series also has a companion Web site -- 
www.pbs.org/africa -- that provides an interactive version of the se-
ries (Littlejohn, Los Angeles Times, 9/4). The Web site provides geo-
graphic and demographic information on regions and specific countries 
and includes a photo essay, with commentary from the photographer, on 
HIV/AIDS in Africa (PBS Web site, 9/7).


--
AIDS Vaccine 2001 Conference Optimistic Over Vaccine Progress, New 
Vaccine Candidates, But Success in Monkeys May Not Translate to Hu-
mans

The AIDS Vaccine 2001 conference opened in Philadelphia on Wednesday 
with a sense of optimism for the future of vaccine research, the 
Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Five years ago, the quest for a vac-
cine against HIV was "going nowhere," but now, buoyed by an influx of 
money, researchers predict a human vaccine is possible. 

The development of an AIDS vaccine is "uniquely challenging" because 
the virus mutates quickly and directly attacks the immune system. 
Further complicating matters, humans do not develop a natural immu-
nity to HIV like they do to some other diseases (McCullough, Phila-
delphia Inquirer, 9/6). According to Baltimore, researchers have 
learned that approaches that seek to neutralize antibodies "don't 
work very well," but that stimulating the killer T-cells of the im-
mune system may produce an immune response sufficient to keep the vi-
rus under control. Scientists must now determine how to elicit that 
response and "how to keep these cells going," he added (Mitchell, 
Reuters Health, 9/6). Although the overall tone of the conference was 
one of optimism, researchers admitted there was still cause for con-
cern. "There is a danger of things slowing down, because it is such 
an arduous process. And this is like the half-way point in a mara-
thon: The worst part may be yet to come," Dr. Beatrice Hahn of the 
University of Alabama-Birmingham said. Baltimore conceded that the 
meeting was "only a beginning" and added that it should be seen 
"hopefully as the beginning of the end." In addition, the vaccine in-
dustry has had trouble attracting and retaining top talent. To bol-
ster research efforts, the U.S. government recently raised post-
doctorate fellowship starting salaries from $25,000 to $45,000. It 
also plans to raise vaccine spending to $357 million in the next fis-
cal year. However, any vaccine will not help those in the developing 
world if the "challenges posed by politics, the demand for profits 
and a lack of infrastructure" are not dealt with, Reuters reports. 
"Our science will produce an AIDS vaccine before our humanity figures 
out how best to use it," Dr. William Foege, a senior health adviser 
to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, said (Morgan, Reuters, 
9/6). 

Speaking for Africa

Conference attendees on Wednesday also heard from Rwandan President 
Paul Kagame. Currently, roughly 10% of Rwandans are infected with HIV 
and between 10,000 and 15,000 infants contract the virus from their 
mothers each year. Although Kagame cited the need for a vaccine, he 
said that the "primary responsibility of controlling HIV/AIDS in Af-
rica lies with Africans," adding that "internal leadership and po-
litical will" are needed to successfully battle the epidemic. His na-
tion's infection rate has stabilized through condom campaigns and 
"other behavioral interventions," and a 10-fold increase in HIV 
screening is expected to help prevent 5,000 to 7,000 cases of verti-
cal transmission each year, he added (Reuters Health, 9/6). 


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The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. ¸ 2001 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved. 

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