The Concordia AntiAIDS Association is a non-profit, private (non-governmental) organisation which was set up in 1994 to look after the urgent needs of a group of people connected with HIV/AIDS who require special care and services.

NEWS CONCORDIA

 

Fighting Aids and Celebrating Life: Life Ball in Vienna with Concordia

http://thebestofvienna.blogspot.com

 

Audience with the Queen

The 17 th of November, a warm and sunny day, was one of the most important days in the history of Concordia since we had the honor of an audience with the Queen at the Zarzuela Palace.

After the rigorous controls at the gate our bus passed through a wide, open parkland full of roe deer up to Monte Pardo where the private residence of the monarchs stands. The peaceful atmosphere almost helped to calm our nerves before arriving at the modest, two floor building. At that moment nobody was able to hide anymore how excited we were.

Doña Sofia's secretary received us and took us to the hall where the audience would take place. ?Would you please stand here?? he kindly indicated the place.

In the meantime dozens of photographers rushed in, obviously eager to take pictures of the Queen of Spain meeting her cousin Princess Marie-Louise of Prussia and the committee of the charity organization she presides.

Some minutes later Doña Sofia entered the room in an elegant red suit, high heels to match and a big smile to welcome her guests.

She spoke first to her cousin and thanked her for coming, after this she shook hands with each person of the committee.

Presents like a beautiful tablecloth that had been embroidered by the mothers of our Concordia patients, the annual report of Concordia and the Concordia Magazine were handed out to her Majesty. ?Let?s take a picture outside on the staircase. It is such a splendid day?, the queen suggested. Later she enquired about our work for Concordia, the actual Aids situation and other subjects.

The half hour we were given passed all too fast but we did not want to leave before expressing our greatest wish:

Your Majesty, would you please consider coming to our Gala in Marbella ?

www.casareal.es

 

CONCORDIA GOES ON STAGE

 

Just a few days before the International Aids Day was celebrated on December 1st our employees demonstrated some very unexpected new talents. They performed an equally amusing and informative talk show named ?Let?s talk about? Concordia? at the Municipal Theatre. The team was supported by the Danish multi-show talent Mugge Fischer, who wrote and directed the show, by the local theater group Seuss, the sexy girls of the Dancing School Rocío Gómez y Guerrero , the Townhall and the backstage workers.

The audience, including many young people who followed the rapid scene changes with enthusiasm, certainly learned more about AIDS in only 90 minutes than ever before.

25 years fighting against HIV

Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize in Medicine

Following a lifetime committed to the search for a therapeutic cure for the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome to eradicate the infection, the doctor in Medicine, Luc Montagnier, is placed in the Parnassus of world science because of his discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), following the call from Stockholm to grant him the Nobel Prize in Medicine 2008.

In an interview he granted to "El País", Montagnier considers that this Prize recognises a "collective achievement" in which dozens of investigators and doctors have participated.

The investigation to find a cure is at a "quite flat" moment, as Montagnier states, great progress has been made regarding the three therapies (the cocktail of three retroviral with which the illness is treated), however, the discovery of a preventive vaccination is distant. The doctor considers that the Prize will serve to remind people that AIDS exists and there is still a long way to go in the vaccination. In this sense, Montagnier is working on a therapeutic vaccination to prevent the patient from depending on medication for the rest of his life. This vaccination, according to his estimates, will be ready before the preventive vaccination, within a period of three to four years.

Asked by those individuals who have a higher risk of developing AIDS, the Nobel in Medicine indicates that the virus acts in those organisms which already present a degraded situation, because of the consumption of drugs or because of a complicated life, with alcohol abuse or little attention to nutrition. Some healthy individuals can be infected by the virus during a brief period but they can get rid of it immediately. The moral lesson of all of this is that you must lead a responsible life and avoid other infections. In Africa, for example, it is an illness of heterosexuals and 60% are women.

Montagnier has also been studying the connections between the virus and cancer. In this manner, he points out that a common factor between AIDS and cancer is the importance the cellular oxidation has in both illnesses. In the case of AIDS; in the infection from the virus, and in the case of cancer; in the genetic alteration which is produced. The oxidation stimulates the variability of the cell. For this reason it is important to avoid the oxidation process.

At 76 years old, Luc Montagnier considers that it is still "quite productive".

Françoise Barré-Sinoussi

The investigator from the Pasteur Institute has been the first French woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Barré-Sinoussi enjoys the success with the same discretion she has lived with up until now by her anonymity as an investigator, with little public projection, virtually unknown outside the scientific environment. And she was one of the investigators, within Luc Montagnier´s team, who discovered the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) at the beginning of 1983.

This Prize has served her to acknowledge the practical scope of her work, as well as the responsibility of her task in the urgency to find basic formulae to improve the lives of patients.

For Françoise Barré-Sinoussi prevention is of vital importance. But, as she points out, there are many sectors of the population, including youngsters, who are forgetting it and this cannot be tolerated as the infection is there. It is true that the treatment is effective but the reality is that it is expensive, complicated and for life. Furthermore, according to the investigator, there are serious side effects over time.

In western countries such as France or Spain this situation is worrisome because, in addition, the individual infected by the virus takes much longer to become aware of it and this may lead to a chain of transmitting the disease from one individual to another, as Barré-Sinoussi states. For this reason an early diagnosis and tests are fundamental to prevent transmitting the virus.

In this sense, the international institutions have become highly involved in the past years in the fight against AIDS. Therefore, the Nobel Prize winner claims that the objective of the world fund against AIDS is that there is a universal treatment for all those affected by this illness in 2010. It is an ambitious objective one may dream of as long as the financial aid from the rich countries continues. The bad news is that we do not know what is going to happen with the world financial crisis. Regarding the current situation of the AIDS investigation, Barré-Sinoussi considers that many advances have taken place but there are also many unknown aspects. For example, if the virus is capable of provoking the immunodeficiency, the precise mechanisms for protection against the infection are unknown, which makes it difficult to find a vaccination against AIDS.