•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Campaigners in the fight against AIDS responded with a rousing cheer — leavened also with scientific caution — to test results, announced on Monday, of a vaginal gel designed to protect women from HIV.

The prototype, in the second stage of a three-phase trial, reduced the risk of infection by the human immunodeficiency virus by 39 percent overall, but by 54 percent among those women who used it most consistently.

Leading figures in the 29-year war on AIDS said that the announcement was heart-warming news, especially for African women exposed to HIV through sex with partners who refused to wear condoms.

“We are giving hope to women. For the first time we have seen results for a woman-initiated and controlled HIV prevention option,” said Michel Sidibe, executive director of the United Nations’ UNAIDS agency.

“If confirmed, a microbicide will be a powerful option for the prevention revolution and help us to break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic.”

The study “marks a significant milestone both for the microbicide research field and HIV prevention as a whole,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institutes of Health.

World Health Organization director general Margaret Chan said she welcomed the findings. “All new advances in HIV prevention, particularly for women, are exciting,” she said.

If, in further research, the South African results are validated and the gel is proven to be safe and effective, “WHO will work with countries and partners to accelerate access to theses products,” she vowed.

More than 33 million people today are infected with HIV. More than two-thirds live in sub-Saharan Africa, where 60 percent of new infections occur among women and girls.

The gel contains a 1 percent formulation of tenofovir. It is a frontline component in the “cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs that disrupt HIV reproduction in immune cells.

In addition to being effective, the formula was also found to be safe and there was no indication that it boosted the risk of viral resistance to tenofovir, the researchers said.

The study, led by the Center for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa, was published in the journal Science on the second day of the International AIDS Conference in Vienna.

Nearly 20 years of research have gone into HIV microbicides, but this is the first test to produce such positive results.

Earlier creams, which have not contained an antiretroviral, have had either a very low level of protection or even boosted the risk of infection.

The International Partnership for Microbicides, which is at the vanguard of anti-HIV gel research, said the results “are statistically significant and should be celebrated.”

“For the first time, the HIV prevention research community has evidence that ARVs [antiretrovirals] topically applied to the vaginal mucosa can offer protection against HIV and potentially other pathogens,” said Zeda Rosenberg, IPM’s chief executive.


Agence France-Presse