UM institute to aid China in its fight to halt AIDS
Pact to further expand city center's global reach
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By Jonathan Bor
Sun Staff
Originally published August 29, 2005, 12:30 PM EDT
Already a force in the fight against AIDS in Africa, the University of Maryland's Institute of Human Virology is expanding its reach to Asia with an agreement to help China keep its emerging epidemic from exploding into one of the world's largest.
Under the agreement, signed today at its annual conference in Baltimore, the institute will assist China in finding appropriate drug treatments and efficient ways of getting them to patients.
The pact also calls for Baltimore doctors to train Chinese physicians in the care of people with AIDS and for China to send young researchers to work in the institute's laboratories on West Lombard Street.
Scientists from both countries will join forces in finding a long-sought AIDS vaccine as well as new treatments that could include combinations of Western drugs and traditional Chinese medicines.
"Wouldn't it be wonderful for the long-term peace, prosperity and health if both parts of the globe came together to solve this problem?" said Dr. Robert C. Gallo, the institute's director and co-discoverer of the virus that causes AIDS.
Gallo said the center also plans to sign a commercial agreement next month with the Chinese government and CK Life Sciences, a Hong Kong pharmaceutical company. The parties hope to develop marketable therapies and share in royalties.
Today's agreement comes as Chinese health authorities increasingly reach out for expertise in grappling with a disease that arrived more than a decade later than it did in the United States, Africa and some other parts of the world.
China documented its first case of acquired immune deficiency syndrome in the mid-1980s, but the epidemic took off in the mid-1990s -- fueled then by the sale of contaminated blood products. More recently, intravenous drug use, prostitution and general sexual activity have abetted the epidemic.
The World Health Organization estimates that fewer than eight out of every 10,000 Chinese are infected with the AIDS virus -- a tiny fraction of the rates seen in some African countries. Chinese authorities estimate that 840,000 people there are infected with HIV.
But experts fear that the disease could overwhelm China if the country doesn't develop effective strategies to contain it soon. Some predict that the world's most populous nation -- with more than 1.25 billion people -- could also have the world's largest AIDS caseload within the next decade.
"Control and prevention is not just a short battle, it's a long war," said Dr. Yiming Shao, chief expert with China's National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention. "With scientific support we can sustain the war against AIDS."
Gallo and Dr. Wang Yu, director of China's Center for Disease Control, signed the pact this morning in a ceremony at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront.
Founded by Gallo in 1996, the institute is the latest of several U.S. research institutions to join China's fight against AIDS. Others include the Johns Hopkins University, University of North Carolina and Harvard University.
"They are looking for top, world-class advice from different sources," said Joel Rehnstrom, who heads China programs for the United Nations AIDS effort.
UNC's program focuses primarily on public health measures to control the spread of HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. Hopkins is testing a medication designed to get addicts off heroin and, consequently, to keep them from spreading the human immunodeficiency virus through the sharing of dirty needles.
Today's pact may be the first between an entire institution and Chinese health authorities, Shao said. Most of the others "are scientist to scientist in different areas."
Critics say the Chinese government came late to the battle, refusing to publicly acknowledge the epidemic until just a few years ago.
But Dr. Myron Cohen, a UNC researcher who works with the Chinese government on AIDS issues, rejected that view. He noted that U.S. reaction to AIDS was far from swift in the early 1980s and that China's epidemic didn't take off until much later.
Cohen said Gallo's involvement is important because of his eminence as an AIDS researcher. Also, he said, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the institute's clinical program, is a world authority in the management of patients on anti-HIV drugs. "The Chinese will benefit enormously," he said.
The collaboration will cost about $7 million over three years, with funding from the Chinese and U.S. governments, and outside sources that have yet to be found, according to Dave Wilkins, the institute's chief operating officer.
One of the institute's central roles will be to help China find drug combinations that are most suitable for its population, Redfield said. In the U.S., therapy often consists of three-drug "cocktails" chosen from more than 20 drugs now available. China has access to a half-dozen anti-HIV medications, although more might soon be available.
Although U.S. doctors often delay the start of anti-retroviral therapy until the virus has suppressed a patient's immune system, that might not be the right answer in China, Redfield said. A key consideration is how to keep patients from developing resistance to one or more drugs, a problem that can force doctors to prescribe other drugs.
From the start, the Institute of Human Virology's main focus was on basic research into HIV infection and the development of treatments and vaccines.
But over the past two years, its scope broadened considerably with the federal government awarding more than $77 million to help deliver drugs to patients in hard hit areas of Africa and the Caribbean.
The pact with China further expands its international focus, although the institute intends to function more as a scientific collaborator than as a relief group.
Gallo said it is difficult to say how far the institute's relationship with China will grow
"It would be wonderful to say this is going to be enormous and big and historical. I don't know what will happen," he said, explaining that funding could determine the extent of the partnership.
This article was updated by baltimoresun.com staff with information from the Associated Press.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-china0829,1,3251432.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines