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NEWS ON THE FIGHT FOR BETTER TREATMENT, A VACCINE, AND A CURE FOR AIDS
A Golden Decade of Antiretroviral Drug Development
Success rate for new ARVs entering phases II–III surpassed 32% from 2003–2011
U.S. ADAP Prescribing Practices Closely Match Recent ARV Guidelines
As we were putting together the 2011 Pipeline Report this summer, we decided to look back at the previous years' reports on anti-HIV drug development. Treatment Action Group (TAG) has been covering the antiretroviral (ARV) drug pipeline since our founding; in the past two years we have joined forces with HIV i-Base (UK) to deepen and broaden our coverage.
Cure Research Momentum Accelerates
The research effort to discover a cure for HIV infection continues to gain momentum, with several important developments having occurred since the last issue of TAGline.
What We Need to Cure AIDS?
A cure for HIV is possible: one man, the so-called Berlin patient, has already been cured of chronic HIV infection with an immune system transplant with cells genetically resistant to HIV. After four years, the man remains free of detectable HIV, and his HIV antibodies are disappearing. However, this approach is dangerous (potentially fatal), costly, and not scalable to the 33 million people currently living with HIV.
Ending the Neglect of Childhood TB
It is estimated that of the nine million new cases of tuberculosis (TB) each year, one million occur among children under the age of 15. Yet advocacy for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of TB in children has been largely absent from the global public health agenda. In fact, the true global burden of TB in children is unknown because of the lack of child-friendly diagnostic tools, and inadequate surveillance and reporting of childhood TB cases. National TB programs and research efforts have ignored TB in children for a variety of reasons, among them that children are less likely to spread disease. However, the stark reality is that children with TB infection today represent the reservoir of TB disease tomorrow.