The AIDS Research Program of South Africa (CAPRISA, for its acronym in English) in Vienna today unveiled the results of a study of a vaginal microbicide gel that reduces HIV transmission in women.
The findings were presented Tuesday in the framework of the XXVIII International Conference Against Acquired Immunodeficiency SÃndome, which meets in Vienna from last weekend to see the overall progress against the disease.
South African researcher Salim Abdool Karim, head of research, said the innovative vaginal gel containing the antiviral tenofivir, significantly reduced the risk of infection of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
Karim, professor and researcher at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, said that women who applied the gel were able to reduce the risk of infection in 39.0 percent, after two and a half years of use, compared with the gel without medication.
The study was conducted for two and a half years to 889 heterosexual women in the South African city of Durban and other cities nearby: Mthethwa, who used the vaginal gel at least 12 hours before having sex and after sex.
The gel also reduced by 51.0 percent the odds of contracting HSV-2 (genital herpes), so that experts could use constants a defense effective for women whose partners refuse to wear condoms.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) described the research as a "breakthrough" in fighting the disease that kills millions of people around the world each year.
"We are giving hope to women. For the first time we have seen results for an HIV prevention option for women initiated and controlled, "the director of UNAIDS, Michel Sidibe, in a statement released in Beijing.
If confirmed, he added, a microbicide will be a powerful option for the prevention and revolution "will help us break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic," he said.
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