UN touts breakthrough in preventing HIV/AIDS

A vaginal gel has significantly cut the rate of women contracting HIV from infected partners in an experiment in South Africa, researchers say.

According to the research, the gel containing AIDS drug tenofovir, cut infection rates among 889 women by 50 percent after one year of use, and by 39 percent after two and a half years.

The gel was found to be both safe and acceptable when used once in the 12 hours before sex and once in the 12 hours after sex by women aged 18 to 40 years.

The results of the three-year study, which was completed by the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa (Caprisa), are being presented at an international aids conference in Vienna.

Salim Abdool Karim, one of the two leading co-researchers, told reporters in Vienna that the 889 women involved in the trial, conducted in the coastal city of Durban and a remote rural village, had largely used the gel as directed.

Tenofovir, he added, lowered the risk of infection by 50 percent at 12 months but then the efficacy declined.

Women who used the gel more consistently were much less likely to be infected, he said.

If the results are confirmed it would be the first time that a microbicidal gel has been shown to be effective.

Welcoming the results, UN agencies said they would convene an expert consultation in South Africa next month to discuss the next steps with the product.

The UN's HIV-AIDS agency noted that nearly 20 years of research had gone into microbicides that can be controlled by a woman, independent of her partner.

Science has shown that women are biologically more at risk of infection than men and an effective gel would finally give women the chance to do something to protect themselves from infection.