
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 18, 1990                   TAG: 9006180100
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

AIDS DRUG EXPECTED BY NEXT DECADE

A vaccine to combat the AIDS virus likely will be available for widespread use by the end of the decade, a government AIDS expert said Sunday.

The Bush administration has come under fire from AIDS activists and congressional critics for not spending enough money on AIDS research and moving too slowly in approving new drugs to fight the disease.

The federal government is spending $1.16 billion in the current fiscal year on AIDS research and the administration has recommended an increase to $1.245 billion in fiscal 1991.

But Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday that "the decade of the '90s will see some important advances that will have a positive impact on HIV-infected individuals."

"Over the next several years, you'll see a real acceleration of vaccine development, and hopefully by the end of the 1990s there will be a vaccine that is available for widespread use," Fauci said.

An estimated 1 million Americans are believed to be infected by HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, which can develop into the AIDS disease.

Dr. Luc Montagnier, an AIDS researcher at France's Pasteur Institute, said it will take at least four to five years to develop an effective vaccine.

Montagnier said government funding for AIDS research in the United States has been "enormous" in the past two years or so compared with Europe.

Fauci said "we're already starting to see positive spinoffs" from AIDS research, such as information that can be used in work on cancer and studies of the immune system.

by CNB