BRENDAN TREMBATH: Data released today shows Australia is struggling to make progress in the battle against HIV and AIDS as the number of new infections grew by 8 per cent last year and 50 per cent over the past decade.
But Australian researchers are making progress on an unusual preventative measure which they hope will one day make a big difference to the infection rate worldwide. They're using cows to produce antibodies to hopefully create a cream which will prevent sexual infection.
Dr Marit Kramski, from the University of Melbourne, told Simon Lauder it should be much cheaper to produce than other anti-HIV creams in development.
MARIT KRAMSKI: There are no creams on the market, they're all under clinical trial and development. And the difference between their approach and our approach is they're using drugs to inhibit the virus, and our approach is to use antibodies.
And the difference is that drugs are really expensive. And especially in Africa, a lot of people don't even have access to treatment, so they won't afford to buy these preventative creams. So our approach is to produce these antibodies in cows, which makes them really cheap and really easy to produce. So we hope to have, in the end, a very effective product, but very, very affordable.
SIMON LAUDER: Does that involve infecting the cow with HIV?
MARIT KRAMSKI: No, no, no, it doesn't. What we do is we vaccinate the cow just with one protein of the virus, so we're not putting in the whole virus. And even if we would the cow doesn't get infected by the virus.
SIMON LAUDER: So how does the cow respond?
MARIT KRAMSKI: Well the cow responds similar to us humans. When you get your flu vaccination, you develop antibodies against that protein or whatever you get, and the same happens in the cow. We vaccinate them with a protein, the develop antibodies and we just milk the cow.
SIMON LAUDER: So the milk is full of antibodies which will make it more difficult for HIV to infect people, is that the idea?
MARIT KRAMSKI: The idea is that we're isolating the antibodies out of the milk. But it's not the normal milk you drink for your breakfast or have with your cereal. We're using pregnant cows, because during pregnancy they enrich the antibodies in the first milk, so we're getting even more antibodies, a really high concentrated milk with antibodies at the end of the pregnancy.
SIMON LAUDER: How far have you got in this process? Have you proved that this works?
MARIT KRAMSKI: Well I have proven that these antibodies are able to inhibit the virus to infect human cells in the test tube. So in the lab we are able to show it works. So what we now have to do is to move forward into an animal model to show it actually works.
SIMON LAUDER: Where do you go from here? How do you turn that milk into a treatment?
MARIT KRAMSKI: Well obviously we need collaborators who have access to animal models and who have access to humans to do safety studies. So that will be the next approach, to have further funding to actually do the studies.
SIMON LAUDER: There's about 30 million people in the world with HIV at the moment, how do you feel knowing that this may one day make a big difference to that?
MARIT KRAMSKI: If we really bring it on the market I think it can make a huge difference. I mean, the product will not do anything for the people who are already infected obviously, because it is a preventative tool. But considering that 2.6 million people worldwide get infected every year, I think it will make a huge difference.
And for me, it's very important, especially for women, who are not really able to protect themselves. I mean there are female condoms out on the market, but not a lot of people know about them, they're really expensive. So I think it would be nice to have a tool for women to empower themselves, to decide 'I want to protect myself or I don't'.
BRENDAN TREMBATH: Dr Marit Kramski from the University of Melbourne, speaking to Simon Lauder.