Health trends

Gel cuts HIV and herpes risk

Researchers have achieved an important scientific breakthrough in the fight against HIV and genital herpes with a vaginal gel that significantly reduces a woman's risk of being infected with these viruses. The results of the ground-breaking safety and effectiveness study of an antiretroviral microbicide gel were reported recently by the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) held at the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria.

The microbicide containing one per cent tenofovir - an antiretroviral drug widely used in the treatment of HIV - was found to be 39 per cent effective in reducing a woman's risk of becoming infected with HIV during sex, and 51 per cent effective in preventing genital herpes infections in the women participating in the trial. Should other studies of tenofovir gel confirm these results, widespread use of the gel, at this level of protection, could prevent over half a million new HIV infections in South Africa alone over the next decade.

"Tenofovir gel could fill an important HIV-prevention gap by empowering women who are unable to successfully negotiate mutual faithfulness or condom use with their male partners," said study co-principal investigator, Dr Quarraisha Abdool Karim, associate director of CAPRISA and associate professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University. "This new technology has the potential to alter the course of the HIV epidemic, especially in southern Africa ,where young women bear the brunt of this devastating disease."

The trial was conducted by CAPRISA in partnership with the US-based organisations Family Health International and CONRAD, with funding from USAID. Gilead Sciences donated the active ingredient for the manufacture of the tenofovir gel.

Source: Family Health International News