News (Updated July 4,
2005)
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adolescent girls who always use condoms correctly are indeed protected from common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), according to a new study. However, the findings also show that only 16 percent of the young women used condoms properly.
The researchers found that teen girls who consistently used condoms correctly were 60 percent less likely to become infected with chlamydia, and 90 percent less likely to have gonorrhea, both leading causes of infertility and chronic pelvic pain.
The most common mistake teenagers made when using condoms was to start sex without a condom, the authors report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
"Although messages directed at adolescents should encourage delaying initiation of sexual activity, many are already sexually active, and STDs are particularly common among this group," write the researchers, led by Dr. Gabriela Paz-Bailey of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Thus, aggressive condom promotion must remain a key to reducing STDs and HIV."
In the report, the researchers note that nearly 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted infections occur every year in the U.S. alone. Half of the people who become infected are between 15 and 24 years old.
During the study, 509 teenaged girls attending an urban adolescent health clinic were tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea, and reported on their use of condoms.
Twenty-one percent of the girls had chlamydia, and another 7 percent had gonorrhea. Four percent had both infections, Paz-Baily and colleagues found.
More than 70 percent of teen respondents who said they had used a condom at least once in the last 3 months said they had experienced condom errors, such as starting sex without a condom, taking it off before finishing sex, breaking a condom, or having it slip off. Only 35 percent of girls said they consistently used condoms.
More than 40 percent of teens who said they used condoms said they start sex without a condom, and teens who admitted to this condom error were more likely to have chlamydia.
"Both correctness and consistency of use is important" for condom effectiveness, the team concludes.
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, June 2005.
|
29 Jun 2005 16:00:41 GMT
Source: Reuters |
The World Health Organisation had hoped to have 3 million people on AIDS drugs by the end of 2005 but now admits it is unlikely to reach the target.
Only about 1 million of the 6 million people with HIV/AIDS in poor countries who need urgent treatment are getting it. About 40 million people, including 25 million in sub-Saharan Africa, are living with HIV/AIDS.
The following are some key facts about anti-AIDS drugs:
- Antiretrovirals suppress replication of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, by interfering with its genetic workings. But they cannot eradicate it from the body completely, so patients must take the medicines for life.
- There are two dozen AIDS drugs on the market that are used in various combinations called highly active antriretroviral therapy (HAART). When successful, HAART can keep virus levels very low, enabling many people to lead virtually normal lives.
- Existing drugs fall into four groups known as nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors and fusion inhibitors. They fight HIV at different stages of its life cycle.
- The cost of AIDS drugs in developing countries has fallen more than 90 percent in recent years, following intense pressure on the drug industry, and the cheapest generics now cost as little as $150 per patient a year.
- Around half of those on therapy in poor countries are taking generics, most
of them made in India. The rest receive drugs from Western companies such as
GlaxoSmithKline which is the world's biggest supplier of HIV/AIDS medicines.
By Toni Clarke Fri Jul 1,11:24 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc. said on Friday it is dropping development of two drugs, one to treat HIV and one to treat smoker's lung and asthma, after they failed to show any substantial benefit to patients.
The world's largest drug company said it is dropping the HIV treatment, capravirine, based on the results of two mid-stage trials which did not demonstrate significant advantages over standard therapies.
The company is also dropping development of Daxas for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease -- often caused by smoking and sometimes called smoker's lung -- and asthma. The drug also failed to provide the hoped-for benefit.
The failures come as Pfizer seeks to bring new drugs to the market to replace existing drugs that are losing patent protection and to help offset lost sales from the withdrawal of arthritis drug Bextra amid safety concerns.
Analysts said they were not surprised by the latest news, but the company's shares still fell 2 percent in mid-morning trading.
"These were both products where there were signals they might have problems," said Albert Rauch, an analyst at A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc.
The company said it is returning the rights to Daxas, which was in the final stages of development, to Altana (ALTG.DE) of Germany, whose shares plunged nearly 13 percent on the news.
Pfizer will return rights to capravirine to Japan's Shionogi & Co. (4507.T).
"We always expect some of our development programs to fail, so this not unexpected, said Stephen Lederer, a Pfizer spokesman. "This shows the scale of Pfizer's pipeline and it shows that this is a risky business."
Barbara Ryan, an analyst at Deutsche Bank, said she had expected the smoker's lung drug, if approved, to generate sales of about $500 million and the HIV drug to generate peak sales of about $200 million.
"This doesn't change anything for Pfizer," she said. "We hadn't held out much hope for Daxas and the revenue would have been split with another company anyway."
Pfizer has several other products in late stage development that the company could submit by the end of this year for marketing approval, analysts said.
These include Varenicline, a smoking cessation drug, Maraviroc, a new HIV drug, and Sutent, a cancer drug.
The company also recently agreed to pay $1.9 billion to acquire Vicuron Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biotechnology company with two promising anti-infectives that could shortly receive regulatory approval.
More acquisitions are probably on the cards, analysts say.
"We fully expect them to be very aggressive in acquiring products," said Rauch.
Pfizer's shares fell 57 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $27.02 on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Additional reporting by Ransdell Pierson)
| Wednesday June 29, 03:11 PM
|
Newer HIV/AIDS drugs too expensive says MSFGENEVA (AFP) - Newer anti-AIDS drugs are being marketed at up to 12 times the price of older anti-retrovirals that are being sold under an agreement to cut the cost of treatment in poor countries. A pricing guide published by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) on Wednesday, found that moves to force generic production of HIV/AIDS drugs had driven down the price of most of the "frontline" medicines from 10,000 dollars per patient five years ago to 150 dollars.But newer anti-retroviral drugs, and special formulations that are essential for children, appeared to be unaffected by the move, MSF said in a statement. The agency warned that they were "increasingly critical" as patients developed resistance to older drugs. "When we switch to second-line treatments, the price increases six- to 12-fold. Treating a child can be four times more expensive than treating an adult," one of the authors of the guide, Fernando Pascual, said. A World Trade Organisation and World Health Organisation programme allows developing countries that are hard hit by HIV/AIDS to order pharmaceutical companies to waive their patents on essential drugs. They can either resort to compulsory licensing for production of cheaper generic copies, or seek a voluntary agreement with a drugs maker to cut the price locally. "G8 countries and other donors are discussing universal access to anti-retrovirals, but this will remain an impossible goal if prices continue to soar," said Felipe Garcia de la Vega, an AIDS specialist at MSF. The agency said its programmes to provide treatment with costly and complex drugs that are widely available in western countries was having an impact in developing countries. "The average survival rate in our projects is 80 percent after 12 months on treatment," Garcia de la Vega said. "Some of our programmes have been operating for more than five years now and we have naturally started having to switch some of our patients to second-line treatments as they have developed resistance to first-line drugs," he added. |
Two years ago, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation posed a series of questions to scientists around the world: How can we improve public health in developing countries? Can we develop vaccines that don't require refrigeration or needles? Are there better ways to stop insects from spreading malaria and other diseases?
The scientists answered by proposing more than 1,500 research projects. The Gates Foundation announced Monday that it is funding 43 of the proposals with grants totaling $436.6 million. That will pay for research ranging from finding AIDS vaccines to boosting the nutritional content of bananas.
"It's shocking how little research is directed toward the diseases of the world's poorest countries," Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates said in a statement. "By harnessing the world's capacity for scientific innovation, I believe we can transform health in the developing world and save millions of lives."
The funding will help researchers prove the feasibility of several potentially brilliant ideas. Among them:
_A team headed by Abraham L. Sonenshein, of the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, will get $5 million to create childhood vaccines that don't need refrigeration. Sonenshein's plan is to encapsulate the vaccines in harmless _ but naturally heat-resistant _ bacterial spores. The vaccines could be distributed in packets for people to mix with water and drink.
_An international team headed by Scott Leslie O'Neill, of the University of Queensland in Australia, will get $6.7 million to introduce a bacterial parasite to a mosquito population in a laboratory; the parasite, which occurs naturally in other insects, should cause the mosquitoes to die before they are old enough to transmit dengue fever, which infects up to 100 million people every year. Mosquitoes have become resistant to some insecticides.
_Four grants totaling $47 million are being given to researchers fighting malnutrition by genetically altering the nutritional content of bananas, cassava, rice and sorghum. For example, bananas with more vitamins A and E and iron could improve health in Uganda, where 38 percent of children under 5 are stunted from malnourishment.
_Paul Yager of the University of Washington, whose team is receiving $15.4 million, will attempt to develop an inexpensive handheld device that can test blood for a wide range of conditions, including bacterial infections, nutritional status and HIV-related illnesses.
The Gates Foundation has committed $450 million to the program, which it calls its "Grand Challenges in Global Health" initiative, and more grants are expected to be announced later. The Wellcome Trust, a British charity that funds medical research, has contributed $27.1 million, and the Canadian Institutes of Health have committed $4.5 million.
The grants are administered by those organizations as well as the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in the U.S.
Monday June 27, 2:54 pm ET
By Theresa Agovino, AP Business Writer
In addition, Bristol-Myers plans to lower the price of two pediatric formulations of its HIV medicines in the world's least developed countries.
The initiative will focus on Africa, participants said at Houston news conference Monday. Of the estimated 2.2 million children under the age of 15 living with HIV worldwide, about 1.9 million reside in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Bristol-Myers.
Houston-based Baylor and Bristol-Myers are planning to send as many as 250 pediatricians to Africa. The doctors will also train local health professionals to treat children with AIDS.
Baylor will spend $10 million on the program that will be used to pay up to $40,000 in student loans for the participating doctors, who will sign up for one or two years. It will also train the physicians before they leave.
New York-based Bristol-Myers will donate $30 million to the initiative. A portion of the money will be used to pay the doctors an annual stipend of $30,000 plus living expenses. The first doctors should arrive next summer.
"There aren't enough doctors that specialize in children in Africa," said Phangisile Mtshali, the director of Bristol-Myers' AIDS initiatives for Southern Africa. "We need to get doctors more comfortable in treating children."
One AIDS expert called the program's effect limited.
"Proposing treating 80,000 children over five years isn't much. That is 3 percent of the children who will die during that time," said Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the advocacy group, Global AIDS Alliance. "We are at a point where small scale programs aren't enough. We need to get up to scale."
Dr. Mark Kline, a Baylor professor of pediatrics and director of the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, said the 80,000 figure is conservative, including only children treated at the initiative's main centers.
"What we haven't included, which would make the number much larger, is when we're training all these African professionals who then go to another tier of centers where treatment can be scaled up, then maybe it's not 80,000 but 800,000. That remains to be seen," he said.
Bristol-Myers agreed to cut the price of AIDS drug Zerit by 44 percent to 85 cents a day and Videx by 90 percent to 15 cents a day.
Zeitz said if Bristol-Myers really wanted to make a difference they would fund more medical schools in Africa and allow generic companies to license their drugs to bring down costs.
Bristol-Myers spokeswoman Becky Taylor said the company doesn't enforce its patents in Africa so generic companies are free to make copies of its drugs and combine them with other treatments.
"We agree the problem is immense, and we hope others will join us in the effort," Taylor said.
Bristol-Myers is also building four children's clinics, including one in Uganda and the other in Burkina Faso. Both should open next summer. The other two clinics won't be in Africa but in other regions where AIDS is a problem. China and Russia are under consideration.
Bristol-Myers has already built one children's clinic in Botswana and expects to open sites in Lesotho and Swaziland later this year. Baylor runs the African clinics.
The latest initiative is part of a program that Bristol-Myers launched in 1999 called Secure the Future, which funds programs to alleviate AIDS in Africa. With the most recent pledge, the company has donated $150 million to programs in Africa.
Associated Press Writer Juan A. Lozano in Houston contributed to this report.