Cuba Working on an AIDS Vaccine

Source: Prensa Latina

Havana, Nov 3 (Prensa Latina) Cuban scientists are working on a therapeutic vaccine against AIDS. The next step is clinical trials, informed specialists of the Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology Center.

The director of technological development of the scientific institution, Eduardo Martinez, told press that the safety of the new product has already been tested in animal models with promising results.

This therapeutic vaccine would improve treatment of AIDS patients whether used alone or in combination with retroviral drugs, most of which are produced in Cuba, the scientist affirmed.

Martinez added that this subject will be discussed in the coming Havana 2007 Biotechnology Congress with expected participation of delegates from 25 nations.
This time the meeting will demonstrate the development and capacity achieved in the Island in technological processes that allows passing from a scientific result to a product that can be used to solve health problems and certain diseases as well as being easily commercialized.

Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={600504A9-8B0A-46CA-A731-8CE6AA342BB5})&language=EN

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Very short article

May be accessed from main page, right column, if above link is broken.

...ir at least if they submit something for the Lancet or something. Right now I'd rather believe the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale.

alot easier said than done.

Do I see the birth of a new you-know-what-ism?

And it hasn’t happened yet. So one more country isn’t likely to tip the balance.

unfortunately this is a very difficult problem to tackle but the more eyes looking at it, the better

I was like, damn, he's keeping busy!

Can't support those commie bastards, you know?

Down with Castro!

It's sad, but probably true.

journal articles. The "normal" steps are prodction of a working paper, then a conference presentation, then after the feedback, addressing the issue in a journal article.
The last thing I had published was in its first iteration a seminar paper, then a conference paper presented, then to the press after lots of feedback from the two previous steps.
Since they are still in animal testing stages, I doubt they are ready for The Lancet or NJM yet!
What it does mean is that the attendees will be able to hear the things they claim, dispute them, go home mull them over and see if they bear water, plus, they get to go to Cuba in the late fall.

UNICEF highlights cooperation programs with Cuba
+ - 08:37, October 07, 2007

An official of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Friday spoke highly of the progress made in the agency's cooperation programs with Cuba.

After a tour of Cuba's eastern Holguin province, Nils Kastberg, general director of UNICEF for Latin America and the Caribbean, praised the low childhood mortality rate (3.8 deaths for every 1,000 born) in Holguin, 742 km east of the capital Havana.

At a press conference in Havana, Kastberg also praised the Cuban health authorities for offering AIDS education to adolescents as well as its low AIDS infection rate compared to other countries.

Cuba announced in June that the rate of AIDS infection in the country among 15-24-year-olds is 0.05 percent, which is the lowest in all the American countries and one of the lowest worldwide.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/6277482.html

It's a shame that too many Americans are on the _bash_Cuba_ bandwagon to recognize Cuba's innovations in health care.

:hi:

together. They have every reason in the world to be deeply proud of what their medical scientists have achieved:

One does not frequently hear of Cuba when discussing today's integrating global economy. Cuba appears isolated, politically and economically, mainly due to trade restrictions placed on it by the US in the 1960's. No wonder, says the author of this Straits Times article, the world is surprised to learn of Cuba's flourishing biotech industry which has contributed much to the field of biotechnology and medicine. Since its establishment in the mid-1980's, the Cuban biotech sector has developed a meningitis B vaccine, and today exports the world's most effective hepatitis B vaccine to more than 30 countries. Recently, it developed the first synthetic vaccine for the prevention of pneumonia and meningitis, which is much cheaper than what is offered by Western pharmaceutical companies. Poised to provide anti-cancer therapies to the European market by 2008, Cuba is also eagerly looking to enter the western market, and many observers are cheering it on. – YaleGlobal

Cuba Ailing? Not Its Biomedical Industry

Tom Fawthrop
The Straits Times, 26 January 2004

~snip~
Cuba pulled off its first scientific coup with the discovery of a new vaccine for meningitis B in the late 1980s. The vaccine controlled epidemics at home, and obtained good results abroad especially in Argentina and Brazil.

Havana's Carlos J. Finlay Institute has entered into a deal that allows major drug multinational GlaxoSmithKline to license its discovery in order to facilitate the first entry of a Cuban medical product into the more lucrative Western market.

Professor Michael Levin, head of the Paediatric Unit at St Mary's Hospital in London, and who is pioneering a joint UK-Cuban medical research project at the Finlay Institute, told this correspondent that despite its economic problems, 'they have excellent laboratories, and their doctors and scientists have maintained world-class standards'.

Another centre of excellence is the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK) which works closely with the United Nations World Health Organisation in Geneva. It is currently working on a new cholera vaccine and seeking to match the efforts of Western countries in the race to find the first vaccine against Aids.

'IPK is respected throughout Latin America and beyond,' says Professor Paul Farmer, professor of medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School. 'With a comparatively tiny budget - less than that, say, of a single large research hospital at Harvard - IPK has conducted important basic science research, helped develop novel vaccines, trained thousands of researchers from Cuba and from around the world, and developed ties with researchers in the US, too.'

Visiting Western scientists are often surprised by the scale and size of the Cuban Biotechnology Centre (CIGB) which opened its research and development facilities back in 1986. In 1994, this was complemented by the launch of a Centre for Molecular Immunology, which has pioneered the latest research into anti-cancer vaccines. Other scientists are engaged in developing an anti HIV-Aids vaccine.
(snip/...)

http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=3193

oh..
yeah
stone those afflicted with aids virus.


they have no problems with these kind of people in Iran ;)

In this video there's a discussion about a patented cure for AIDS already. What's up with that?


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8567399552051355527

yes many people are living good lives with the protease inhibitors and the like...in the rich countries, if they have the wealth (or their insurance co. has the wealth) to pay for the very expensive cocktail of drugs required to keep them alive -- i've been told it costs $10K a year but it's probably more now, i haven't kept up with costs but drug prices overall are pretty sky high as we all know

a complex drug cocktail is quite simply useless in many poor rural areas in several african nations where it is impossible to get the drugs properly shipped and in the hands of the people who need them every single day -- roads and infrastructure just doesn't allow for reliable shipping, and people need their maintenance drugs every single day

cuba in addition to providing medical care to its own people has had many programs over the years of providing medical assistance to africa and i'm sure they know well the value a vaccine would have in the poorest nations

also i've never heard of anyone being "cured" even with the most advanced medicines to the point where they were no longer dependent on their medicines, i would consider that we have effect treatments for those who can afford them and have access to them, but we do not have what i would call a cure which would eventually free you from the need for a drug cocktail

in the field of medicine is the 9th wonder of the world when you consider the Big Pharma manipulated goverment just nextdoor that wants to see Cuba destroyed.

It's a human disease. Feline HIV is just not the same bug.

Goddamn, if they do, good for them. They'll save a lot of lives if this works.

They just kill all the people who don't recover.

...I think a few of your stitches are a little frayed. Better get that looked into by a physician.

His American insurance doesn't cover frayed stitching and besides, the medications to treat it cost $1700 per month and aren't on the insurance company's formulary.

In Cuba they just treat worn baseballs, they don't demand your payment information first.

is that you?

I really hope this works out. No one should have to suffer AIDS.