Use of traditional medicines proposed to cure AIDS

By T. Sima Gunawan

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (JP): The prominent French researcher who discovered the AIDS virus encouraged participants at the International conference on AIDS to use traditional medicines and herbs to cure the deadly disease.

Luc Montagnier from Pasteur Institute of France suggested at a special lecture on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific that researchers look for any possible means to fight the disease, including the testing of traditional drugs, especially now that the situation has become critical.

"We have a very urgent problem to solve and we are in an emergency situation. So every way has to be explored as soon as possible," he said.

Montagnier believes that traditional medicines can best solve the problems faced by developing countries, where most patients cannot afford the expensive drugs needed to treat the HIV virus.

He also reminded them of the other damages the disease can cause to the immune system, brain and muscles.

He underlined that the testing should be conducted rationally and with intensive long-term laboratory experiments.

The World Health Organization estimates that by mid-1996, nearly 18 million adults and 1.5 million children will have been infected with HIV. The number of people with HIV in Africa is 11 million and in Asia the number is three million. It is expected that by the year of 2000, between 30 and 40 million will have been infected by the virus.

Even though the Asia-Pacific region currently accounts for only 16 percent of the world's HIV infections, there are indications that the epidemic is growing rapidly and dramatically in the region.

The WHO predicts that by the year 1997, the annual number of new HIV infections in Asia will exceed those in Africa.

Montagnier has been doing research at an AIDS center in Paris. A similar AIDS center will be opened in Ivory Coast, and there is a plan to open such centers in Thailand and the U.S. as well.

He said the centers are critical for their laboratories and clinics

Asked about the possibility of creating a vaccine to cure the disease, Montagnier laughed bitterly.

"I have been asked and given the answer many times. Sometimes I say before the year 2000 but maybe I am too optimistic. 2000 is a few years from now," he said.

He said that preparing a vaccine was a difficult process because of the mutability of the virus.

When Montagnier isolated the AIDS virus 12 years ago, he hadn't the slightest idea that there would be such a dramatic rise in the number of AIDS patients.

"We thought we might find some solutions within five or six years, not 15 or 20 years," he said, adding that he would concentrate on other illnesses such as cancer and brain disease after finishing his work on AIDS.

In another session, researchers from Beijing's Institute of Virology and the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Hygiene of Regensburg, Germany, announced the results of their joint study. The study, they hope, will give new hope to the prospects of finding an effective AIDS vaccine.

They said they are now preparing an experiment with human beings following successful evaluation in rodents and monkeys.