Delegates converging in Durban for the start of the 2016 International AIDS Conference.

Some two-and-a-half million people are still becoming infected with HIV every year, according to a new study published on Tuesday, even as drugs have slashed the death rate and virus-carriers live ever longer on anti-retroviral treatment.

Where as results from an early safety trial with a potential HIV vaccine show some promising results, this could that about a decade to be realized, according to the researchers.

This was among the key issues being discussed at the on-going International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa.

An 18-month trial with a candidate vaccine dubbed HVTN100 drew on 252 participants at six sites in South Africa, one of the countries hardest-hit by an epidemic that has claimed more than 30 million lives worldwide since the 1980s.

The participants fell within a low-risk category for contracting the sexually-transmitted virus, the researchers said.

The trial cleared a key hurdle in the long, three-phase process to test new drugs. In this early phase, the main point is to assess safety, not efficacy.

“We wanted to see if this vaccine candidate is safe in a South African population and if it is tolerable,” Kathy Mngadi, principal investigator at one of the research sites, explained to AFP.

The team also looked for antibodies signaling that the body’s immune system was responding to the vaccine.

The trial built on the foundations laid by a groundbreaking trial conducted in Thailand in 2009, which yielded the world’s first partially effective vaccine, dubbed RV144.

While hailed as a breakthrough, the effect of the Thai course decreased with time, dropping from 60 percent after one year to 31.2 percent after three-and-a-half years.

“RV144 set us on this journey of hope, but also showed us what we still need to learn and accomplish in this field,” said Fatima Laher, co-chair of the HVTN100 trial.

Delegates in a match in Durban at the beginning of this year’s International AIDS Conference in Durban.

All the study criteria “were met unequivocally and, in many instances, the HVTN100 outcomes exceeded both our own criteria,” added trial protocol chair Linda-Gail Bekker.

The next phase of the trial, dubbed HVTN702, will kick off in November with the recruitment of 5,400 South African men and women aged between 18 to 25 at high risk of contracting HIV.

People are divided into risk categories through criteria that includes their sexual activity.

“We hope to have results in five years, and it is going to be a very exciting five years for all of us because it is the result of many, many years of hard work,” said Glenda Gray, HVTN Africa programme director.

A fully effective vaccine is still a long way off, she cautioned.

But recent studies have shown that even a partially effective blocker could have a huge impact if rolled out on a large scale.

While the quest for a cure continues, many view a vaccine as the best hope for stemming new infections.

Larry Corey, principal investigator for the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, a publicly-funded international project, said vaccines were barely mentioned the last time the conference was held in Durban some 16 years ago.

“It’s really gratifying now to see how far we’ve come scientifically,” he said.

Last year, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates, who spends millions of dollars on AIDS drug development, said he hoped for an HIV vaccine within a decade, as a cure seems less likely.

The post Over 2million infected with AIDS annually as experts warn of complacency first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.

The Director of the International Institute of Environment and Development Dr. Camilla Toulmin wrote an open letter to Bill Gates expressing concern over his criticism of their earlier report on massive land acquisitions in Africa by western companies and countries for agriculture.

IIED had in an earlier report Alternatives to land Acquisitions indicated that the land acquisitions were a big threat to food security in Africa where threats to hunger are huge.

Bill Gates Microsoft Founder

But Gates, the Chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the leading funders of agriculture aid in Africa in a recent interview referring to the report said some western lobby orgnaisations might stop helpful flow of investment into Africa and thus keep the continent unable to meet its food needs.

Below is the letter in full

IIED’s director Dr Camillla Toulmin, responds to comments Bill Gates made about large-scale land acquisitions in Africa in a recent interview.

Dear Mr Gates,

I was very interested to read your Annual Letter and congratulate you and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the far-sighted investments you have made in health and agricultural development.

In your interview this week on AllAfrica.Com, you replied to a question about IIED’s recent report Land deals in Africa: What is in the contracts?, by saying it would be too bad if some of this investment was held back because of Western groups’ ways of looking at things, and that the inflow of capital should not be viewed purely through Western eyes.

IIED colleagues would agree with you that inward investment has the potential to bring significant benefits to growth in agricultural productivity and rural incomes in Africa. Equally, you are absolutely right that it is not for Western groups to tell African people whether they should accept inward investment, for agriculture or anything else.

But as our research shows, the problem so far is that very few people in these countries have been able to see the contracts that have been negotiated. The lack of clarity, large areas of land involved, long term leases and questions around compensation for the displaced all raise questions about who wins and who loses from these deals, as currently designed. But, as the report argues, it does not have to be like this.

Contract farming or joint ventures with local farmers offer a different investment model (others are described in our earlier report Alternatives to land acquisitions). Far from trying to push a “Western agenda”, IIED works closely with partners in a range of African countries, who generate the perspectives and evidence on which our reports are based. They are calling for greater scrutiny of these deals.

In Mali, farmer organisations have been calling for a moratorium on large scale land allocations, and have reminded the government that all land, water, forests and natural resources constitute national assets for all citizens (see below for details of the farmers’ Kolongo declaration).

Mr Tiébilé Dramé, leader of the PARENA party in Mali, has invited His Excellency President Touré to publish the list of those who have acquired land in the irrigable area, and the amounts allotted to each, along with the contracts, letters of agreement and conditions surrounding these leases (see below).

The haste with which these deals are being made has meant important environmental issues have not been taken into account, such as the combined downstream impacts of water taken off the River Niger on the enormously valuable inland Niger Delta in central Mali on which millions of people depend.

Transparency is called for to ensure that investors undertake their contractual obligations, rather than engage in speculation over land which does not belong to them.

Given the enormous respect in which you and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are held, you can indeed “help make the case for the world’s poorest people” because of the access you have to world leaders.

Your voice and engagement could help transform the benefits promised by this much-needed investment, by encouraging governments to open up debate around how best to use each nation’s soils and water, for the long term benefit of its citizens.

Would you be ready to offer your help in opening up national debate on agricultural investment deals so they can meet the needs of smallholder farmers, who have been at the heart of your agricultural development strategy?

Best wishes

Camilla Toulmin, Director IIED

http://www.iied.org/natural-resources/media/open-letter-bill-gates-african-land-acquisitions

The post Bill gates criticized over statements on Africa Land grabs for agriculture first appeared on Uganda Multimedia News & Information.