FEATURE: World turns red for AIDS Day

Thirty years after HIV-AIDS started making headlines, the world acknowledges the impact of this deadly disease.

Last Updated: Thu, 1 Dec 2011 07:32:00 +1100

World AIDS Day organisers say the December 1 event is a day for communities to unite in the fight against the virus.

Radio Australia and the Australia Network have been running interviews this week with leading HIV-AIDS scientists, health workers and campaigners in both Asia and the Pacific.

The researcher

Dr Monsef Benkirane is a French scientist who had his first HIV paper published while studying for his Phd at the University of Marsailles.

Since then, Dr Benkirane continues to publish pioneering HIV research and has been in the Australian capital city of Canberra for a biomedical symposium.

He told Connect Asia's Sen Lam there is still hope scientists will find a cure.

"We have very powerful drugs against HIV and, these drugs, they do really great job in terms of suppressing virus in the blood," Dr Benkirane said.

"We know they will not cure HIV, so I think one of the challenges is to try to understand why and try to develop new drugs that will make us able to cure the virus".

While a cure may still be some way off, Dr Benkirane said progress in HIV AIDS treatment has been made.

"I think there have been really great progress in HIV AIDS in terms of treatment, vaccine and prevention," he said.

"I think the most important things that we recently learned is that treatment is prevention, because people who are treated, people who under suppressive drugs, they barely transmit the virus".

Rising prevalence

An AIDS conference in Asia earlier this year identified Indonesia as one of the key fronts in the region's fight against the disease.

But HIV specialist Dr Zubairi Djoerban explained to Connect Asia's Sen Lam that most cases still go undiagnosed.

"The problem is that there's a big gap between the estimation, the real HIV-AIDS infection in Indonesia, compared to the reported cases," he said.

"Most of the researchers and also the government said that the estimation is more than 300,000 HIV infection. But the reported cases are still less than 100,000."

Dr Djoerban said more people need to be tested in Indonesia.

"It's not about accuracy, but about the number of tests done is still very low," he said.

"We should have more and more people tested for HIV."

Dr Djoerban also said both testing and treating more people will be the Indonesian Government's next big challenge.

"We have done many tasks, but not enough because up till now the number treated is less than 30,000," he explained.

"I hope that in the next year we can double or triple the number, because if we treat the patients, the result is very good in my experience in the hospital in Jakarta.

"Many, many more thousands of people are in good health after being treated with anti-retro virals, it's now also if you treat the patient they will not transmit anymore, the transmission will be cut".

Read the full transcript of the interview with Dr Djoerban.

Funding fight

The Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation has warned that funding is running out for the HIV response in the Pacific.

An estimated 30,000 people are HIV positive in the region with the vast majority of the cases in Papua New Guinea.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation, Maire Bopp told Pacific Beat the threat to AIDS funding in the region results from a decision by the Global Fund to cancel its latest funding round and replace it with a transitional funding mechanism.

She said the Pacific region's ability to response to HIV will now be in question, because the cancellation of Round 11 of the Global Fund anticipates funding uncertainties beyond 2013.

Ms Bopp said donor countries and agencies are now placing tight measures on how they channel their aid.

She also said it is about time that the Pacific starts analysing where the AIDS response and epidemic are and develop strategies for beyond 2013, and prioritise resources needed to carry out strategies within decreasing funding levels.

"This is a clear indication for Pacific Island agencies to stop building new projects and programs on HIV and AIDS, but to maintain existing ones as they will be operating under strict funding," she said.

"Costing for most of their respective operations should be reasonable and they should not rely on traditional donors."

Some organisations will be forced to scale down or close operations as a result of the cancellation of the Global Fund finances and the withdrawal of certain donors in the region.

Ms Bopp said the Pacific Islands AIDS Foundation will now close it's headquarter in Rarotonga, Cook Islands and will relocate to Suva in Fiji.

"This is a direct result from funding constraints set on a small regional organisation like PIAF."

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