AIDS conference wants mitigating, as well as preventive approach

Delegates to an international AIDS conference here demanded a shift from an almost exclusively preventive approach to the epidemic to one that mitigated its effects in the world's poorest countries.

Parallel meetings at the International Conference on AIDS and STDs in Africa (ICASA) said studies had shown that antiretoviral (AVR) drugs could mitigate the effects of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa significantly - but that few resources were directed towards such programmes.

They called for increased government and donor support for medical schemes directed at people infected with the HIV-virus.

A medical team from Cote d'Ivoire presented a paper that showed that AVRs, if made accessible to the larger population, could slow down the effects of AIDS.

"The results appear to encourage the use of AVR drugs in Africa, as long as they are made genuinely more accessible to patients by subsidising," the team said.

A Nigerian medical team, which described AVRs as a "veritable tool" in the management of HIV patients, said the high cost of available drugs was largely responsible for the widespread devastation caused by AIDS.

"The majority of patients can not afford the therapy owing to high cost and unavailability of drugs," it said.

The ICASA conference, which began on Sunday and ended on Thursday, saw international aid agencies acknowledging the inadequacy of urrent AIDS programmes in sub-Saharan Africa were the pandemic has claimed over 11 million lives.