AIDS researchers need some $12 billion to $18 billion (10-15 billion euros) over the next decade in order to fully develop potential vaccines for the disease as HIV infection rates continue to climb, delegates at a conference said on Monday.
Delegates at the AIDS VACCINE ’04 conference held in Lausanne this week called for more political and financial commitment towards developing AIDS vaccines.
“Due to an alarming increase in the number of HIV infections, whereby it is anticipated that an additional 45 million new infections will occur by 2010, there is an urgent need for a preventative vaccine,” conference chairman Giuseppe Pantaleo said in a statement.
Delegates also acknowledged the need for research to be more collaborative and better organised in order that more vaccine candidates can be taken to the final stage of testing, the clinical Phase III trial.
Some 800 researchers attended the conference, co-organised by the Lausanne University hospital and EuroVacc -- a Swiss-registered foundation whose aim is to develop a vaccine against the HIV virus which causes AIDS.