Search for AIDS Vaccine at Risk Due to Lack of Interest and Funding: Lewis

On Tuesday in Montreal, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa Stephen Lewis said efforts to develop an AIDS vaccine are faltering due to a lack of funds and global commitment. Speaking at a conference organized by the Canadian Network for Vaccines and Immunotherpeutics (CNVI), a coalition of researchers working on clinical trials for AIDS and SARS vaccines, Lewis said the quest for a vaccine to halt AIDS received $640 million US in funding in 2004 - about half the amount that should be dedicated to the research.

"Your pursuit is in jeopardy," Lewis told researchers at the AIDS Vaccine International Conference. "Your collective voices must be heard on the funding dimensions of a vaccine. It can't be left solely to activists. You're the influential professionals. You should give no quarter. The world depends on it."

Lewis urged the researchers to emerge from the laboratories and become public figures in the cause. "The world desperately needs your voices," he said.

Last summer, the Canadian government pulled $34 million ($28.7 million US) for clinical trials for AIDS vaccine candidates. According to CNVI, seven candidates were ready for clinical trials next year.

Lewis said he cannot explain the lack of enthusiasm for AIDS vaccine research in developed countries. "I don't think the world yet realizes the full, incomparable horror of AIDS, and its inexorable spread around the planet," he said.

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