The new drug cocktails are having a proven effect on preventing opportunistic infections. But the new developments remain inaccessible to the developing world. These main points were made during Session B15 held yesterday focusing on HIV-related infections.

"The risk of virtually all defining conditions, with the exception of Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, has decreased by 80-90 percent over the past five years," reports Matthias Egger of the University of Bristol, citing data from the developed world.

Egger says he looked at the viral loads and CD4 counts in patients taking the HAART treatments at the beginning of therapy and after three months. "Most people experience a decrease in viral load and an increase in CD4 cell counts, but the reaction to HAART varies. The CD4 cell count at three months is the single most important determining factor," he said.

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But the new therapies offer little hope for developing countries, emphasised T. Sirisanthana of Thailand's Chaing Mai University. "HIV-patients in the developing world cannot now afford HAART and not in the foreseeable future."

With HAART costing a patient around SF18,000 per year, Sirisanthana compared the impact of this cost on an American (annual income: SF 45,000), a Thai (SF12,000), and a Burmese (SF120). "And now we have to add to that picture the effect of shrinking economies in Southeast Asia. Thai GDP, for example, has dropped by 50 percent compared with 1996," he concluded.

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