health

New lab fights HIV/AIDS

With an investment of $8 million, health authorities opened a new lab in Gorgas to cure HIV/AIDS.

At a cost of $8 million, ministers of health from the Centro América have inaugurated a laboratory for the management and control of the HIV/AIDS in the Gorgas Memorial Institute in Panama.

Elizabeth Rodríguez, coordinator of the project, explained that the laboratory will have several functions, including testing the resistance of the HIV/AIDS virus to certain drugs; certifying laboratories in other countries; conducting research; and training professionals.

"It is a center that has been worked on for two years," she said.

The laboratory will be fully up and running in March, when countries including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica begin sending materials for analysis, Rodríguez said. The lab currently has 90 percent of the infrastructure it needs to be fully operational.

Gorgas director Jorge Motta explained that the lab's projects are very important since they might finally enable people living with the HIV to know whether the drugs they use are the correct ones.

"The studies that will be carried out in this laboratory will help to increase the life expectancy of patients with the virus," Motta said, "because they will enjoy better treatment."

Data from Onusida, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, show that 2.7 million people contracted the virus in the last year alone.

Central America is the region in the Americas most affected by the HIV virus.