Monday, 6/2/97 UCLA program helps to fight AIDS epidemic on
global level TECHNOLOGY: Scientists share information with doctors
in Asia, Americas
By Kathryn Combs Daily Bruin Contributor Today, nearly everyone
is aware of the danger and consequences posed by the AIDS virus to
the human population, but many tend to think in local terms. What
most people don’t realize is that AIDS is increasingly becoming a
global epidemic. In response to this trend scientists and
researchers at UCLA have developed a program, sponsored by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH). Through this program, UCLA
researchers aim to share their knowledge and expertise about the
AIDS virus with scientists and doctors from other countries, some
with more severe AIDS-related problems than the United States. The
Fogerty AIDS International Training Program at UCLA, works in
collaboration with Latin American and Asian Pacific countries, to
expose health care professionals from other countries to the
latest, up-to-date technical knowledge as well as clinical and
research-oriented practices. "(We) decided to focus on interactions
with Latin America and Pacific Rim countries (because) the relative
level of AIDS in those countries, particularly in Latin America, is
high," said Dr. Otoniel Martinez-Maza, one of the directors of the
UCLA Fogerty AIDS International Training Program. "The overall goal
of the Fogerty program is to develop collaborative action between
UCLA AIDS researchers and AIDS researchers in other countries,"
Martinez-Maza said. "We’re hitting a very wide range of AIDS
research(ers) all the way from virologists, to lab researchers to
anthropologists and social scientists. What we’re attempting to do
is to give them as wide an experience of what is happening at UCLA
and try to tie them together with potential collaborators at UCLA,"
he continued. Dr. John Fahey, co-director of the UCLA Fogerty AIDS
International Research Program, noted that ever since AIDS research
began at UCLA, the education of health-care professionals outside
of UCLA has been a priority of scientists and researchers at UCLA.
"From the beginning, when AIDS was first discovered, at UCLA we had
fairly good programs for the education of physicians and health
care professionals,"Fahey said. "We are beginning to concentrate on
Latin American and Pacific Rim regions … most programs are
concentrating on Africa but we were concerned that Latin America
and the Asian Pacific countries were at risk for HIV infection
(too)," Fahey added. Researchers, such as Martinez-Maza and Dr.
John Fahey, first received the $300,000 grant from the NIH in 1988
as part of a program developed by the Fogerty Institute under the
NIH. The initial funding was to last for five years. However the
UCLA group was re-funded for an additional five years, making this
the 10th year that UCLA has been involved with the Fogerty
International AIDS Research Training Program. As well as having
scientists from other countries visit UCLA for training, UCLA
researchers also go to other countries to assess the problems other
areas are having firsthand, so that they may better develop
programs geared toward aiding these countries. Gloria Almeida, an
assistant researcher in the Department of Immunology with the
Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and Brazilian Ministry of Health, was one
of the visiting scientists during this year’ s program. Almeida
said that in Brazil there are three males per one female infected
with the HIV virus. Studying the effects of tuberculosis on the
progression and development of the HIV/AIDS virus, Almeida also
stated that such a three-to-one ratio was relatively high among
developing countries. "(Other) STDs in women are one of the
problems that we are trying to analyze with researchers here at
UCLA. We still have a high incidence of STDs in women (in Brazil),"
Almeida said. According to Almeida, AIDS treatment in the United
States is able to enhance life quality because of both the
available technology and available resources. Whereas in most
developing countries not only is the technology lacking, the
funding for such procedures is also not available. "This university
was one of the first places that identified the AIDS disease in
1981 or ’82. (UCLA) did a very good job controlling the disease,
developing the technology, quality control and developing
preventive techniques,"she concluded. "(AIDS) is a global public
health problem,"said Martinez-Maza. "While the number of AIDS cases
in the United States is starting to level off, this is not
happening globally. It’s becoming more and more of an international
and global problem," he said.