October 28, 2001 PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) - Faye Gonzalez said she volunteered to be injected with a new experimental vaccine against HIV after the virus took the life of a close friend last year.
``If by helping to develop a vaccine I could spare somebody else that pain, then I want to be part of that,'' Gonzalez, 35, said recently after receiving one in a series of test shots.
Preventative programs, treatment and ways to improve the lives of those battling HIV and AIDS are key topics at the 10th Annual International Conference for People Living with HIV/AIDS, which began Saturday in Trinidad and Tobago.
``Persons living with HIV and AIDS must be a part of the solution. In practice, that is absolutely not the case,'' said Peter Piot, executive director of the joint U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS.
Some 600 people from around the world who are infected with the virus are expected to attend the five-day conference.
An estimated 36 million people are infected with the virus that causes AIDS, which has already killed 16.5 million people, according UNAIDS.
This year's conference is being held in the Caribbean to reach out to the region's HIV-infected people, said Stuart Flavell, of the Netherlands-based Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS.
The Caribbean, excluding Cuba, has an HIV infection rate of nearly 2 percent, the second-highest prevalence of HIV infection after sub-Saharan Africa. New treatments that arrest the progression of AIDS prove too costly for many in both regions.
In June, researchers testing an experimental HIV vaccine began injecting the first of 40 volunteers in Trinidad, including Faye Gonzalez. The trials are sponsored by the manufacturers and U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The volunteers are trying out a vaccine that combines two products, ALVAC manufactured by Aventis Pasteur of Lyon and AIDSVax made by VaxGen of San Francisco.
Gonzalez has received the first two in a series of six experimental injections without experiencing side effects.
The Medical Research Foundation of Trinidad and Tobago, which is conducting the trial, is working with other research centers carrying out similar ``second-phase'' vaccine trials in Brazil and Haiti. U.S. universities such as the University of Baltimore, Cornell University and University of Pittsburgh have helped with the research.
The second-phase trials are designed to test effects on the immune system. The first phase tested the safety of the vaccine among 3,000 volunteers in the United States and Europe.
First- and second-phase trials of a similar vaccine combination have also been conducted in Thailand, the U.S. institute said.
As well as vaccines, participants in the conference plan to discuss access to medication, patient rights, prevention and discrimination.
``My hope is that this will shatter the conspiracy of silence in the Caribbean about the reality of HIV and AIDS,'' said Trinidadian Yolanda Simon, the conference's chairwoman.
The number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean has reached about 500,000, and the virus has killed about 8,000 in the region, according to the Caribbean Task Force on HIV/AIDS.
In Trinidad and Tobago alone, an estimated 17,000 people live with the virus, including 150 who planned to attend the conference.
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
