Microbicides Urgently Needed: Statement by IPM CEO, Zeda Rosenberg, on New AIDS Statistics

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) releases the 2004 AIDS Epidemic Update

Zeda Rosenberg, Sc.D., Chief Executive Officer of the International Partnership for Microbicides, issued the following statement upon reviewing the UNAIDS/WHO 2004 AIDS Epidemic Update:

Women are the new face of AIDS. Today, nearly half of the 37.2 million adults living with HIV worldwide are women, up from 41 percent only seven years ago. The new Epidemic Update 2004 released today shows that women and girls are increasingly affected by the disease in each region of the world and the epidemic continues to worsen.

Current prevention options are not enough. If women and girls are to have a genuine opportunity to protect themselves, their best option is the rapid development of new HIV-prevention technologies like microbicides, which women can control.

The world’s governments must dramatically increase investment in microbicide research and development in light of the recently released statistics on the state of the epidemic and its impact on women and girls. The pharmaceutical industry must also continue to show leadership and make new anti-viral agents available for testing as microbicides. Finding a microbicide is essential if we are to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

With an additional global investment of US $1 billion (€ 771 million), microbicides could be in the hands of women in developing countries within the next five to ten years, potentially saving 2.5 million lives over three years.

According to the UNAIDS report, since 2002, the number of women living with HIV has risen in each region of the world. The biggest rise was in East Asia (a 56 percent increase), followed by the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia (up by 48 percent). In the US, AIDS ranks among the top three causes of death for African-American women aged 35-44. Infection rates among young women are especially high. In Kenya, for every 20 young men with HIV, there are 45 women with the virus. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 76 percent of the young people (15-24) with HIV are girls under 20.

Microbicides are substances that kill or immobilize HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Under development for use as a vaginal gel or cream, or contained within a sponge or vaginal ring that would release the drug slowly over days or weeks, microbicides would give women a way to protect themselves from HIV, and could alter the fundamental imbalance that makes so many women susceptible to infection.

About IPM

IPM seeks to deliver a safe and effective microbicide for women in developing countries as soon as possible. The IPM identifies the most promising technologies and invests its resources to help develop them into usable products. Given current scientific advancements and the identification of a number of potential microbicidal agents, an effective microbicide could be developed by the end of the decade. IPM is led by Chief Executive Officer Dr. Zeda Rosenberg, who is a Harvard-trained microbiologist and public health advocate.

Donors to IPM include the governments of Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the World Bank and the UNFPA. In 2004, IPM entered into agreements with Tibotec Pharmaceuticals Ltd., a Belgium-based subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson, Inc., and GlaxoSmithKline to develop and screen microbicide compounds, respectively.