NewsLab

One German and two French scientists won the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine , traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year.
The prestigious prize goes to Harald zur Hausen of Germany for his work into the cause of cervical cancer and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France for their discovery of the virus that causes AIDS.  In September 2003, I had the chance to interview Professor Luc Montagnier about his research. I think it would be interesting to cite some of his answers.  

Which are the major breakthroughs in the fight against AIDS for the last 20 years?           The isolation of HIV-1, HIV-2 in 1983 and 1985, the design of the blood tests in 1985 and the application of drugs (active on virus multiplication), starting from 1996. 

What was the source of HIV?           For HIV-2 it seems clear that it comes from a West African monkey called Sooty mangabey. For HIV-1, most scientists believe that it comes from chimpanzees. In fact the problem is not where it comes from, because the passage from animal to man may have occurred many times in the past in Africa and yet there was no AIDS epidemic. The main question is to ask why the AIDS epidemic started within the 70s in Africa and in North America I believe that some microbial co-factors increased the transmissibility and made it more virulent at that time, together with increased sexual promiscuity.  

It is believed that there was an injustice concerning your research about AIDS, as you were the major contributor for the isolation of the virus.           The problem with the Americans is now completely solved. We have become friends again and actually Dr Gallo and I have published a joint paper in the journal SCIENCE and there would be another joint paper in the story about the discovery of HIV, signed by both of us.  Doctor Gallo agreed that we were the first, at the Pasteur Institute, to isolate the virus but his group made also an important contribution to show that the virus was the cause of AIDS. So there is no more difficulty.  

Is Africa a forgotten continent?           No, it is not, absolutely not. Of course there are several countries which have still a very high rate on infection. But there are some hopes. First, some prevention campaigns have shown efficiency. Second, now the prices of the anti retroviral drugs have been decreased, both by the drug companies and also by giving access to generic drugs made in India or Brazil. The World Trade Organization recently accepted that there will be exception for drugs which act on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This is in the good direction, but this is not sufficient. My proposal is that we should encourage all the countries which have high HIV infection to create some specific centers for clinical research, for treating patients and for giving them education, prevention advice. And these centers should act not only in large cities but also radiate to small villages. Our Foundation tries to implement some centers along that concept. We have already created one center in West Africa (Abidjan, Ivory Coast), and we are contributing to the installment of a similar center in Cameroon. Our objectives now are to transfer the technology, to help these countries to have a network of centers treating HIV infection by some other ways, not only by triple therapy. Some of these drugs could be made also by the concerned countries, implying creation of factories in Southern and Central Africa. 

AIDS changed the way we view the world. Puritanism made a victorious come back. What do you have to say about that?           The problem is not puritanism, but laxism. Many young people are completely forgetting about HIV and Aids. They don’t take any precautions. I think this is the main problem. They think that AIDS is curable, this is not true, there is no cure and the anti retroviral drugs are making patients better but they are not curing the disease. Those are still infected and still infectious. So I think the most important goal is to develop prevention campaigns especially at schools and of course not only based on the use of condoms. Individuals should choose between the use of condoms, abstinence, and faithfulness.