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Harvard AIDS Institute:
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Secure The Future Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.:
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FIRST HIV REFERENCE LABORATORY OPENS IN BOTSWANA
-- Joint Project Of Government of Botswana and Harvard AIDS Institute
-- First Drug Resistance study of HIV-1C Subtype, Most Prevalent HIV Subtype in Africa and Worldwide
-- Major Commitment From Secure the Future to Develop Pioneering Laboratory, fund Study, and Treat Patients
Gaborone, Botswana (February 15, 2000) The first laboratory and training center in Botswana devoted exclusively to the advanced study of HIV opened today in Gaborone. The facility will allow researchers in this southern African nation to conduct the first major study of HIV -1C subtype. The study aims to identify both how best to prevent the spread of this rapidly expanding African AIDS virus, and how to treat it.
The new Botswana -Harvard HIV Reference Laboratory is a joint project of the Ministry of Health of Botswana and the Harvard AIDS Institute.
Subtype C of HIV-1 is responsible for more than half of all the world's HIV infections. To date, most HIV research has focused of HIV-1B, the viral subtype found mostly in the world's developed nations. HIV-1C, the focus of the reference laboratory's research is widespread in southern Africa, East Africa, and India. In Botswana, up to one in four adults is infected with HIV.
"The epidemic of HIV-1C that is blazing across southern Africa today is infecting a much larger fraction of local publications than are the other subtypes in other regions," said Max Essex, D.V.M., Ph.D., chair of the Harvard AIDS Institute. "Its prevalence and its rapid spread suggest its greater potential for causing larger epidemics than any other HIV the world has experienced before".
The reference laboratory and the study of HIV-1C viral resistance in Botswana are being funded with $4.9 million Secure The Future from Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, along with funds from the Government of Botswana and from Harvard.
Secure the Future is Bristol -Myers Squibb's $100 million initiative to help women and children with HIV/AIDS in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland. Patients enrolled in any Secure the Future -supported medical research will receive all medications free for the term of the study and thereafter for as long as they are deemed medically appropriate. This innovative policy applies to all medicines form all manufacturers. The value of medicines in the Botswana study is estimated to be $13.3 million, making the total commitment from this Secure The Future grant $18.2 million. In January, the first two Secure The Future community outreach and education grants for Botswana were announced. These grants total $432,000.
The Botswana-Harvard HIV reference Laboratory was dedicated today at a ceremony led by the honorable Joy Phumaphi, Minister of Health, Botswana; the Honorable John Lange, U.S. Ambassador to Botswana; Dr. Max Essex, and Mpule Kwelagobe, Miss Universe 1999.
"By expanding understanding of the highly complex genetics of HIV virus, this Secure The Future grant has the potential to impact the lives of people throughout southern Africa, East Africa and India," said Kenneth E Weg, Vice Chairman, Bristol -Myers Squibb Company. "Additionally, the grant will help develop a cadre of Botswana scientist and technicians trained to conduct state of the art clinical research."
"The services available through our new research and training center are equivalent to those available at the world's more sophisticated medical centers," explained Howard Moffat, M.D., superintendent of Princess Marina Hospital, Gaborone. The facility will have a staff of 10 trained scientists and will be used to train AIDS researchers throughout the region.
"The Botswana-Harvard HIV reference laboratory will be a major addition to the medical infrastructure of Botswana and will make Princess Marina Hospital a center of HIV/AIDS excellence for the region," said Richard Marlink, M.D. Executive Director, Harvard AIDS Institute. "We are especially pleased with the commitment from Secure The Future that treatment will be provided to patients as long as it is medically appropriate.
As a result of HIV/AIDS, by 2010 life expectancy in Botswana is expected to decline nearly 20 years, a level has seen in the 1940s. Currently, almost 40 percent of all pregnant women in this country are infected with HIV, and about a third of the their babies are subsequently infected at birth or through breastfeeding. Seventy percent of these children do not live past the age of two.
"The positive social indicators which have been the pride of Botswana are being reversed by AIDS," said Botswana Minister of Health Mrs. Joy Phumaphi. "The most affected are the able and economically active members of society. We must all do more."
In addition, researchers at the Harvard AIDS Institute will work jointly with those at McGill University Center in Montreal, Canada, to perform specific drug resistance testing of the HIV-1C virus before and during treatment.
Viruses become resistant to drugs because they constantly mutate. The mutation process and the effect of drugs on that process are thought to vary form on subtype, or clade to another. There are five major HIV subtypes: A, B, C, D and E. Each subtype has a unique geographic distribution. Subtype C is the most genetically variable of the subtypes and seems to be spreading globally with the greatest speed. The specific genetic mutations that confer resistance to medication have yet to be fully described for Hiv-1C.
"There is an urgent need to know more about the determinant of drug resistance in non subtype-B viruses", explains co-investigator Dr. Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS center, Jewish General Hospital Montreal, and President of the International AIDS society. "We anticipate a dramatic increase in resistance to drugs among the many people in sub-Saharan Africa who are being treated with sub-optimal regiments of antiretroviral therapy. Unfortunately, these resistant viruses are easily spread by sexual contact."
"While HIV infected persons in developing countries have a right to be treated with the best therapies that they and/or their governments can afford, we cannot ignore the potential for increased levels of drug resistance in such settings and the transmission of resistant forms of the virus," said Dr. Essex. " The new laboratory will provide scientists in Botswana with the resources to conduct state-of-the-art research. Armed with this ability they will help accelerate general understanding of subtype C and lead to ways to stop its rapid progress."
Secure the Future is a public-private partnership with the governments of the five countries; UNAIDS; Harvard Institute; Baylor College of Medicine; the Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA), and other African schools of medicine, among others. The program provides grants for medical research and for community outreach and education focusing on the psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS. Secure The Future also funds capacity-building educational programs in medicine, healthcare and public health. (visit www.securethefuture.com)
The Harvard AIDS Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, is dedicated to conducting and catalyzing research to end the worldwide HIV/AIDS epidemic. The Harvard AIDS Institute was created in 1988 to expedite and expand the AIDS research conducted at Harvard University and its affiliated hospitals. The institute is committed to finding solutions to the HIV epidemic in Africa and has created some of the longest standing research collaborations on that continent.
The McGill AIDS Center, Montreal, Canada, is on of the world's leading AIDS research institutions. The center takes a multi-disciplinary approach to HIV/AIDS research, coordinating its activities across basic science, clinical research, epidemiology, and the social sciences and influencing behavioral change. McGill scientists were among the first to identify the problem of drug resistance.
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