Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The Durban Declaration

Abstract

The declaration on these two pages was stimulated by the current controversy in South Africa about whether HIV is the cause of AIDS (see, for example, Nature 404, 911; 2000 and Nature 405, 105; 2000). This has caused massive consternation among all scientists, doctors and many others in the international community who treat AIDS patients or who work on AIDS in other ways. There is widespread anxiety that denying or doubting the cause of AIDS will cost countless lives if blood screening, use of condoms, and methods to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus are not implemented or, worse, even abandoned.

The declaration has been signed by over 5,000 people, including Nobel prizewinners, directors of leading research institutions, scientific academies and medical societies, notably the US National Academy of Sciences, the US Institute of Medicine, Max Planck institutes, the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Royal Society of London, the AIDS Society of India and the National Institute of Virology in South Africa. In addition, thousands of individual scientists and doctors have signed, including many from the countries bearing the greatest burden of the epidemic. Signatories are of MD, PhD level or equivalent, although scientists working for commercial companies were asked not to sign.

The Durban Declaration has an organizing committee of over 250 members from over 50 countries. The list of signatories up to 29 June can be found on Nature's website as Supplementary Information (http://www.nature.com), and an up-to-date list can be found at http://www.durbandeclaration.org .

HIV causes AIDS. Curbing the spread of this virus must remain the first step towards eliminating this devastating disease.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Adults and children estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS, together with the proportion of adults infected by HIV across the world (UNAIDS, June 2000).

References

  1. Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic, June 2000 (UNAIDS, Geneva, 2000). http://www.UNAIDS.org/hivaidsinfo/documents.html

  2. Hahn, B. H., Shaw, G. M., De Cock, K. M. & Sharp, P. M. AIDS as a zoonosis: scientific and public health implications. Science 287, 607–614 ( 2000).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Weiss, R. A. & Jaffe, H. W. Duesberg, HIV and AIDS. Nature 345, 659–660 ( 1990).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. NIAID HIV as the Cause of AIDS http://www.niaid.nih.gov/spotlight/hiv00/

  5. O'Brien, S. J. & Goedert, J. J. HIV causes AIDS: Koch's postulates fulfilled. Curr. Opin. Immunol. 8, 613– 618 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Darby, S. C. et al. Mortality before and after HIV infection in the complete UK population of haemophiliacs. Nature 377, 79–82 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Nunn, A. J. et al. Mortality associated with HIV-1 infection over five years in a rural Ugandan population: cohort study. Br. Med. J. 315, 767–771 (1997).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Sperling, R. S. et al. Maternal viral load, zidovudine treatment, and the risk of transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 from mother to infant . N. Engl. J. Med. 335, 1678– 1680 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report 1999 11, 1– 44 (1999).

  10. Liska, V. et al. Viremia and AIDS in rhesus macaques after intramuscular inoculation of plasmid DNA encoding full-length SIVmac239. AIDS Res. Hum. Retroviruses 15, 445–450 ( 1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Sitas, F. et al. Antibodies against human herpesvirus 8 in black South African patients with cancer. N. Engl. J. Med. 340, 1863–1871 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Shaffer, N. et al. Short course zidovudine for perinatal HIV-1 transmission in Bangkok Thailand: a randomised controlled trial. Lancet 353, 773–780 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Guay, L. A. et al. Intrapartum and neonatal single-dose nevirapine compared with zidovudine for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1 in Kampala, Uganda: HIVNET 012 randomised trial. Lancet 354, 795–802 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

The Durban Declaration. Nature 406, 15–16 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35017662

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35017662

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing