Africa seeks funds for Aids research

African Aids scientists yesterday launched an appeal for $233m (£164m) in an effort to shift the focus of research into an HIV vaccine from the west to the continent most blighted by the disease.

A two-day conference near Cape Town of scientists, pharmaceutical firms, foreign governments and organisations heard that two-thirds of the 40 million people infected with HIV worldwide live in Africa, yet less than 2% of research funds for an anti-Aids vaccine are spent on the continent.

The World Health Organisation-sponsored meeting is seeking cash to fund the African Aids vaccine programme over the next seven years. One of South Africa's leading Aids researchers, Malegapuru Makgoba of Cape Town's medical research council, said: "We need to invest in basic research development in Africa, and build the capacity and infrastructure on the one hand, and to use resources that are already available in developed countries. We need to make sure there is an African input into western research. We want a strong international effort, not an isolated African one."

African scientists have criticised research in European and US laboratories because it mostly focuses on strains of HIV found in the west.

"The developed countries with resources want to focus on the variants prevalent in their own populations," Prof Makgoba said. "That's understandable, but they also want to test those kind of products within African populations. We want a partnership based on real equity rather than exploitation."

South African scientists in particular are more optimistic about the prospects for research since President Thabo Mbeki bowed to pressure at home and internationally by lifting his objections to a more conventional approach to Aids.