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CNN Live Sunday
National HIV Prevention Conference Gets Under Way Tomorrow
Aired August 12, 2001 - 18:12 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
STEPHEN FRAZIER, CNN ANCHOR: This year's National HIV Prevention Conference gets under way here in Atlanta tomorrow. In the 20 years since the Centers for Disease Control's first reports on what came to be known as AIDS, almost 450,000 Americans have died from that disease, over one million have been affected. Worldwide, 22 million people have died of AIDS and 36 million are infected now with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
For more on AIDS prevention efforts and treatments, we're joined now by Dr. Ed Tramont of the National Institutes of Health. He is in Washington. Dr. Tramont, thank you for joining us.
ED TRAMONT, HIH: My pleasure.
FRAZIER: Of course, this conference talks about HIV prevention, but in some parts of the world the infection rate is still very high. Where is the highest rate of infection?
TRAMONT: Well, the highest rates of infection are in underdeveloped nations, particularly in Africa, where 70 percent of the cases are, and in the Asian countries, which is about 18 percent. In North America, we have about 2.5 percent of the number of cases. So, the AIDS epidemic is disproportionate at this time in underdeveloped nations worldwide.
FRAZIER: And is it hitting disproportionately hard based on the structure of those societies?
TRAMONT: I wouldn't go so far to say that. I think it has a lot more to do with infrastructure and the lack of the public health infrastructures that we have in the Western world.
FRAZIER: Right.
TRAMONT: ... which go back many, many years in our nation.
FRAZIER: In -- outside of Africa, in what we call the developing world, the Centers of Disease Control is reporting some pockets of very high infection that would spark an epidemiologist's interest. Who is getting hardest in those pockets?
TRAMONT: It would be -- there are certain nations in southern Africa that are particularly hard hit, for example, Botswana, South Africa are the nations right now with extraordinarily high rates of infection.
But this shouldn't be expected in terms of any other sexually transmitted disease. Once you hit a certain level, the disease will just -- the numbers would just explode, and it would happen in our country as well.
FRAZIER: And what is contributing to that now? With all these 20 years we've had to get to know how to try to prevent AIDS and also working so hard to learn how to treat it?
TRAMONT: Well, remember that in terms of world history, the 20 years is not a long time. We really -- the first major breakthrough in combating AIDS occurred 17 years ago when doctor Bob Gallo and his colleagues developed techniques to grow -- isolate and grow the virus in the laboratory, and then went through a rapid period of discovery. We learned how the virus was spread, who was at risk, et cetera.
We also learned a lot about the virus itself, and that led to the development of the drugs that we now use today. The drugs have had -- certainly have had an impact, but not as big an impact as the blood test that was developed 17 years ago, which protects our blood supply.
FRAZIER: And you're careful to point out that those drugs are a management regimen, not a cure.
TRAMONT: That's right. They're (UNINTELLIGIBLE). So far, we have -- we do not have treatments that will cure the infection. Now, history has shown that at least some diseases, like for example syphilis, which is a sexually transmitted disease and has an epidemiologic pattern very similar to HIV, and before antibiotics infected about 10 percent of all people living in the urban areas of the United States and Western Europe.
The advent of antibiotics had a tremendous impact in interrupting that epidemic, so that syphilis today is a relatively rare disease in the Western world. But the major thrust to combat epidemics, the greatest successes that we've had have been in the development of vaccines. The good news, we have many vaccines -- experimental vaccines in the pipeline...
FRAZIER: For AIDS now?
TRAMONT: For AIDS, that's right, for HIV. But the challenge will be to be able to test them in a scientifically rigorous way, so that we know exactly how well they're working.
You have to think about this sort of like a war. If you take for example, World War II, there wasn't a single knockout that ended World War II, there were a series of decisive battles -- the battle of El- Alamein, the battle of the Bulge, et cetera, and that is how we will probably advance in the development of an AIDS vaccine.
(CROSSTALK)
FRAZIER: Which is what we understand is going to be the focus of the conference that starts up this week? TRAMONT: That's right. That's right. It's a very critical conference, and it's focusing on prevention as we have -- as the field has matured to recognize that there are no quick fixes.
FRAZIER: Right. But we are going to have to end it here, doctor, and make that the last remark, but we're grateful for your insights today. Dr. Ed Tramont of the National Institutes of Health, thank you for joining us, and good luck with your own work, which is focusing on those vaccines.
TRAMONT: Thank you.
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