Robert Gallo: Boomerang missile hit AIDS victims, too
"Do you think we can ultimately beat this thing?" was the question Joep Lange, the renowned clinical researcher who lost his life last week aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, asked me 15 years ago about HIV/AIDS.
Lange, a professor at the University of Amsterdam's Academic Medical Center and head of the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development, was my host as visiting professor in the Netherlands for several days.
Professor Lange was dedicated to improving HIV drug therapy and making medicine accessible to those infected with the virus in developing nations. In 2002, he famously said, "If we can get cold Coca-Cola and beer to every remote corner of Africa, it should not be impossible to do the same with drugs."
It is ironic that Lange and his colleagues were traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, when their jetliner was savagely blown up by barbarous Russian-backed rebels. They might as well have aimed that boomerang missile at themselves. Russians and Ukrainians alike will suffer more than most from this slaughter of a cadre of AIDS researchers.
Infection up 250%
Ukraine is one of the European nations most badly affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. According to the UNAIDS, as of Jan. 1, 245,216 cases of HIV infection were registered among citizens of Ukraine, including 65,733 AIDS cases and 31,999 AIDS-related deaths.
Ukraine's HIV prevention tactics are terribly inadequate, and the disease will no doubt spread with the country's continued unrest.
As for Russia, the prevalence of HIV infection there is even higher than in the Ukraine. Between the two nations, according to UNAIDS, they account for nearly 90% of new infections diagnosed in a region that spans Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Since 2001, even as Africa has begun to successfully battle HIV, prevalence of the virus in this region has increased 250%.
In short, the lunatics on the Ukraine/Russia border fired a missile on the very people trying to help alleviate and ultimately end the epidemic ravaging the two nations.
Mankind needs each and every activist and clinician on the front lines of the war on AIDS. There is no doubt the field will suffer a setback in treatment and prevention as we continue to learn of those who lost their lives in this unforgettable tragedy.
Ray of hope
Often, there is a silver lining on a cloud, even the darkest, most tragic one. With the horror of AIDS, we saw scientific and social spinoffs. The AIDS pandemic inspired pioneering biomedical breakthroughs, including a greater understanding in the field of immunology and cancer research, and an interest from pharmaceutical companies to advance viral drug therapy.
AIDS also resulted in greater tolerance for sexual orientation, an increase in women's rights and a greater understanding of socioeconomic differences.
Perhaps with this tragedy, we will see an increase in dedication to bringing treatment and education to developing nations and a new determination to end AIDS through the development of a functional cure and an effective HIV preventive vaccine.
Perhaps mankind will work harder to end global terrorism and the killing of innocent people engaged in living full and productive lives. Lest we forget, there are many others who died on the Malaysian passenger jet as well — each of whom had dreams we will never see come to fruition.
May none of them have died in vain.
Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, is co-founder of the Global Virus Network and is best known for his co-discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS.
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