November 30, 2002

Professor Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of the HIV/AIDS virus, is to address a ground breaking Middle East summit on Diseases of New World Economies, to be held in Dubai, in January.
 
The world-renowned researcher will join more than 40 medical experts from the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Australasia, who will focus on critical health issues and the latest advances in patient care, at the International Arab Health Congress - the Middle East’s largest series of healthcare conferences.
 
Professor Montagnier, who has devoted his professional life to finding protective and theraputic AIDS vaccines, will outline the prospects for controlling the worldwide AIDS epidemic. He will also call on developed nations to continue efforts to find a cure for a disease that kills ten times more people in Africa than armed conflicts.

“In the face of the alarming global spread of the disease in every country, especially in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, India and Eastern Europe, it is essential to find new therapeutic approaches, which can be made available to all patients at reasonable cost,” said Prof Montagnier, President of the World Foundation for Aids Research and Prevention.
 
“Industrialised countries must not close their eyes to the virulence of the scourge and should be ready, now more than ever, to pursue their research.”
 
More than 5 million people worldwide will have contracted the AIDS virus in 2002, bringing the total number of those infected to 42 million, up 2 million from a year ago. About 70 percent of the cases are in hard-hit sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new U.N. report on the extent of the global epidemic.
 
Of those who will die from HIV/AIDS this year, 610,000 are younger than 15, and almost half are women, the report said. The two most populous countries in the world -- China and India -- are both facing "serious, localized epidemics," with more than 1 million Chinese and 4 million Indians infected with HIV. 
 

But the world's fastest-growing HIV/AIDS epidemic is happening in Russia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where there will be an estimated 250,000 new infections and 25,000 deaths during 2002, according to the report. Most of the infections are attributable to a sharp increase in people who inject heroin and other drugs, and most of those infected are younger than 30, the report found.
 
In North America, where anti-viral drugs have sharply reduced AIDS deaths, about 15,000 people will die from AIDS in 2002, and the death toll in Western Europe will be about 8,000, the report said. The number of new HIV infections in 2002 will be 45,000 in North America and 30,000 in Western Europe.
 
By the end of 2002, an estimated 980,000 people in North America will be living with HIV/AIDS; 570,000 in Western Europe.
 
Although the World Health Organisation (WHO) says Middle East and North Africa has one of the world’s lowest AIDS prevalence rates, 0.13%, the number of cases is increasing by over 20,000 annually.

According to the WHO drug abuse is the most common cause of AIDS in a number of countries, accounting for two-thirds of cases in Bahrain, half in Iran and more than a third in Tunisia.
 
In addition to AIDS, the Diseases of New World Economies conference will focus on the impact of obesity and nutrition on hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes; new advances in the fight against diabetes, including how the Internet can aid in the treatment and care of diabetics, and the re-emerging threat of tuberculosis.
 
The International Arab Health Congress, to be held alongside Arab Health 2003 – the Middle East’s premier hospital, medical equipment and services exhibition – at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre, from January 26-29, will also include vertical conferences on eHealth Applications, Health Management, and Advances in Minimally Invasive Surgery and Robotics.
 
-Ends-
 
For further information: Malcolm Ward, MCS/Action, PO Box 20970, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Tel +9714 3902960; Fax +9714 3908161. Email: malcolm@mcsaction.com
Or visit the show online at www.arabhealthonline.com
 

© Press Release 2002