Home
GSK in focus
HIV/AIDS: The pandemic in perspective

HIV / AIDS: The pandemic
in perspective

Combating HIV/AIDS is a tough battle involving medical treatments and lifestyle changes.

Every single day 13,000 people are infected with HIV/AIDS and 8,000 die as a result of it. Estimates vary, but nearly 40 million people are infected with the disease – equivalent to the population of Spain. A further five million were infected in 2005 alone.

A 2004 UN report warned that the epidemic has cut to less than forty years the average life expectancy of people in seven countries in sub-Saharan Africa—Central African Republic, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Zambia.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, children and young people are particularly affected by the spread of HIV/AIDS. Over 50% of all HIV infections occur in children. Adults and children with AIDS and their families have to face not only health problems but can also encounter discrimination, isolation and inadequate or inappropriate support services.

Sobering statistics, but as tragic as they are even they do not tell the whole story. For beyond the direct effects of the infection, HIV frequently means poverty, orphaned children, social isolation and other infectious diseases such as tuberculosis.

The global community is aware of the scale of the problem. For its part, the pharmaceutical industry is working hard to find new and more effective treatments for HIV, the viral infection which can lead to AIDS.

A lot of emphasis is placed on anti-retroviral treatments. These medicines are specifically designed to block the action of retro-viruses, a type of virus, of which HIV is the most well-known.

However, viral resistance to existing drugs continues to be one of the biggest challenges in effectively treating HIV. Consequently the emphasis is currently on expanding the number of anti-retroviral drugs available with different modes of action or improved efficacy, tolerability and ease of use.

GlaxoSmithKline is helping with an array of initiatives including improving the convenience of delivering antiretroviral therapy, developing molecules that address drug-resistant HIV. In addition the company is carrying out research into a vaccine against HIV infection.

The search is on for a cure, but that is not the whole story. The consequences of HIV/AIDS are such that they demand a local, as well as an international, response.

Various community-based groups provide a wide range of information, counselling, care and other support services. These groups form the backbone of the fight against HIV/AIDS in many countries where governments are unable or unwilling to combat the effects of the epidemic.

GSK works with these groups through its Positive Action programme. The programme was set up in 1992 to work in partnership with HIV communities around the world by providing support for partner organisations to conduct prevention and education campaigns, fundraising and awareness-raising programmes, home-based care and treatment initiatives, counselling services and outreach schemes for marginalised communities. Currently it works in around 30 countries across the world.

Support is also provided for programmes that share information among community groups at national, regional and international level-for example through skills-building workshops at major HIV/AIDS conferences.

These projects help to share knowledge and ensure that communities can build on the success of others' innovative ideas.

Positive Action also works with community-based organisations and employees to promote wider understanding of HIV-related issues among those not directly affected, in order to combat stigma and discrimination. Both of these are key aspects of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and make it more difficult to treat patients and prevent infection.

What is HIV/AIDS?

It was only in 1981 that the first cases of unusual infections and weakened immune systems were reported in the USA. The actual cause of the condition, AIDS, was unknown until the discovery in 1983 of the virus that would later be called HIV.

Over 23 years on, AIDS has grown to become the fourth-leading cause of death among adults in the world, resulting in over three million deaths every year.

HIV destroys the immune system over a period of several years, resulting in people becoming more susceptible to infections which are usually harmless to those with a normal immune system. The gradual decline in immunity results in illness and eventually death. The rise in the number of tuberculosis sufferers has been linked in part to the spread of AIDS.