Recent news
March 2011
Interview series examines HIV/AIDS and TB research issues
March 9, 2011 -- A new interview series launched on International Women’s Day and examines issues surrounding research and development for HIV and tuberculosis (TB). In the first interview, Kaitlin Christenson, coalition director for the Global Health Technologies Coalition, discusses how new health tools such as microbicide gels are an important component of empowering women to prevent HIV infection. “There’s certainly no silver bullet for empowering women,” she said, adding, “To protect women’s health, new technologies will be a critical component of a package of interventions. When you consider HIV, there is a complex web of factors that increase women’s vulnerability to infection. You need new tools like a microbicide or an HIV vaccine that women can initiate or control, alongside other interventions that allow for better access to health care services as well as shifting gender norms and promoting behavior change.” Christenson also stressed the importance of partnerships to develop new health products. “In the last two decades, there’s been an emerging organizational model called the product development partnership, or PDP, for neglected diseases, including HIV and TB. That model has brought together the experience from the private sector and the public sector’s will to do good, and we’ve seen successes emerge. Some of the examples are new drugs for malaria, a new vaccine for meningitis, the work in microbicides, diagnostics for TB, and new vaccine and drug candidates for TB.”
In the second interview, Quarraisha Abdool Karim—associate scientific director at the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA)—talks about how new health tools can help women protect themselves from HIV. “Right now, in terms of the options available, the only option for women who are unable to practice safe sex or insist their partner use a condom, is nothing. Microbicides is still a concept. I do think that prophylaxis use of ARVs [antiretroviral drugs] opens the door for women to use to prevent infection. I don’t believe technologies on their own can change women’s lives. HIV risk in women is a complex set of factors that is interrelated and rooted in gender power imbalances. Technology at least gives women a little bit of space to protect themselves from getting infected.” She added, “Right now, we have an HIV epidemic decimating the female population in many communities in South Africa. The technology will help stop that decimation. That will be an important role in prophylaxis use of ARV, either as a choice of oral or topical formulations. With either, we have proof-of-concept, and we are moving on getting them available easily to women. That will make a difference in terms of the HIV threat.” See the links below for more information.
