World AID’s Day Thursday 1st December.

Premier Alden McLaughlin delivered a message supporting World AID’s Day here in the Cayman Islands and congratulating “the excellent work being done by the Health Services Authority, Cayman AIDS Foundation and the Red Cross to educate and inform our people on HIV and AIDS.”

He also said :

“According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 35 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the epidemic in the early 1980s, including 1.1 million in 2015.

“These are staggering statistics.

“Unfortunately, we in the Cayman Islands are also affected by this global epidemic. Our first case was identified in 1985 and since then 145 people have been confirmed with the virus. Currently there are 39 males and 28 females living here with the disease.”

In 1984 when HIV was found to be the cause of AIDS the US Department of health were reasonably confident they would find a cure for the disease within two years.

“More than three decades later, a safe and effective preventive vaccine has yet to be licensed and more than 250 clinical trials have failed. A large study set to begin in South Africa on the eve of World AIDS day, held on 1 December 2016, is proving to be scientists’ best hope in seven years.” – Léa Surugue
International Business Times.

Why is it so hard to find a vaccine for HIV? Surugue asks the same question and in her article she says:

HIV is very different from all the other viruses for which a vaccine has successfully been developed. Diseases like polio or small pox have different degrees of morbidity and mortality, but in most people who become infected, the viruses elicit an effective immune response in the body that ultimately clears the virus and protects the person from reinfection with the same virus. Vaccines for the two diseases mimic this protective response.

“Back in the day when there was still small pox, mortality was 15 to 20%. This means that 80 to 85% of people survived and did well in the long term,” said Fauci. “With polio, more than 90% of people ultimately do well. So the body proves that it is capable of mounting an effective immune response.

“Thus, natural infection has provided a ‘proof of concept’ indicating that it is feasible and likely that you will be able to reproduce this natural immune response with a vaccine, based on this successful experiment of nature.”

The problem with HIV is that the body does not easily mount a good immune response against HIV. Among people who are infected, virtually no one goes on to clear the virus or keep it at low level – with the exception of elite controllers who represent less than a fraction of 1% of all HIV infections. This means that to find an effective HIV vaccine, scientists have to do ‘better than nature’.

“When researchers start to think about developing HIV vaccines, they face the problem of having to do better than natural infection. The body does not make a good immune response, and so we have to figure out a way to push the body to create something that it does not readily do naturally. This is why it has been so hard to find a vaccine”, Fauci said.

Read the whole article at: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/why-it-so-hard-find-vaccine-hiv-1593486

Let us pray the South African vaccine trials prove to be successful although they appear to have only a 31.2% effective at preventing HIV infection over a 3.5 year testing period.

As Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases, one of the trial’s funders, told IBTimes UK: “A vaccine with a 31.2% efficacy is not something you want to widely distribute, but it is enough to encourage you to try and expand upon it.

I leave the final words to our Premier:

“AIDS is a life-threatening illness. Therefore, we must ensure that all of us – young and old – adhere to safe sexual practices. If we do not abide by our own actions to prevent the spread of HIV, the consequences can be grave.

“I also ask that you treat everybody with HIV with respect and compassion. While our health services provide medical care for these persons, we also need to offer our support as a community. We should never stigmatise anyone because they are HIV-positive.

“Finally, as we mark World AIDS Day, please take a moment to remember those whose lives were claimed by this terrible virus. Let us not forget family, friends and neighbours here in the Cayman Islands, and overseas, who died too young, too soon.”

Free HIV testing is still being offered here in the Cayman Islands at a number of locations until Saturday, 3 December.

Free HIV Testing
Free HIV Testing is available at Faith Hospital, George Town General Practice Clinic and Bodden Town Health Center Monday — Friday from 9am until 1pm and at the West Bay Health Center except on Wednesday. Testing will be available at the East End Health Center on Monday from 1 — 3pm and Tuesday — Friday from 9am until 1pm; at North Side Health Center on Tuesday and Friday from 9am until 1pm and on Wednesday and Thursday from 1 — 3pm; at the AIDS Foundation on Monday and Wednesday from 5 — 7pm and at the Red Cross on Tuesday from 5 to 7pm and on Thursday from 6 to 8pm. Little Cayman clinic offers testing on Tuesday from 9am — 1pm.

Visit www.hsa.ky

To read Premier McLaughlin’s World AIDS Day Message go to: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/premier-and-minister-for-health-hon-alden-mclaughlin-mbe-jp-mla-world-aids-day-message-2016/