There is a pressing need to fill up the gaps in research and scientific knowledge about prevention
and treatment of HIV/AIDS, as number of people living with the disease has grown to alarming proportions, an expert with the Indian Council of Medical Research said on Thursday.
ICMR is organising an international conference on 'Emerging Frontiers and Challenges in HIV/AIDS Research', which will start here, in western Indian city, on February 5.
"Factors like consistent viral variation, differential immunological responses in the patients, viral affinity to different receptors and resistance to therapies are the major
impediments to developing effective drugs and vaccines," said Sanjiva D Kholkute, Director, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (a part of ICMR).
"Other issues are lack of focused HIV prevention programmes and integrated programmes specifically designed for people living with HIV," Kholkute, who is also the convener of
the conference, said.
The number of HIV patients has risen alarmingly in the recent years, he said.
The conference aims to provide a forum to the researchers working in areas such as mechanism of HIV infection and transmission, resistance to the pathogen as well as anti-HIV drugs, disease progression, and development of effective
medicines etc, he said.
The three-day conference will also mark the centenary of ICMR.
The participants will discuss the key roadblocks to the research, such as inconclusive knowledge of the basic mechanism of HIV pathogenesis, lack of consensus about the
appropriate models for vaccine research and product testing, among others, Kholkute said.
There will be special sessions on the policymaking for the programmes on control and management of HIV/AIDS.
The 'basic science' sessions will focus on the impact of pre-clinical testing of anti-HIV drugs, microbicides and vaccines, among other topics.
The 'clinical science' sessions will cover anti-retroviral therapies, resistance to drug therapy, limitations in HIV diagnosis and clinical trials of microbicides and vaccine, Kholkute said.