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Invisible 'condom' for women available soon
Di Caelers. 10 June 2005. Daily News. Republished courtesy of Independent Newspapers (Pty) Ltd.
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Invisible "condoms" for women who cannot make choices about safe sex could be as little as four years away. Huge advances in the field of microbicides - effectively a gel or cream which when inserted into a woman's vagina will protect her from HIV infection - have resulted in five major human trials, the earliest results expected at the beginning of 2007.
This was the news from Professor Salim Abdool Karim, clinical infectious diseases epidemiologist and interim Deputy Vice-chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, who said the need for "women-controlled methods" (for protection from HIV) was urgent.
Addressing the 2nd South African AIDS Conference on Thursday, Karim lashed out at big pharmaceutical companies for slowing down the bid to bring to the market vaginal microbicides by their total lack of interest in the field.
"If we were developing a microbicide for men, we would have every pharmaceutical company clamouring to get involved," he said.
In spite of the fact that the development was being done by small biotech companies with few resources and little funding, Karim said five Phase 3, or human trials, were currently under way, with South Africa integral to each.
The smallest of these was likely to produce results by the beginning of 2007, and the biggest a year later. Reasonably, a product could be ready for marketing by 2009.
South Africa's integral role stems from the fact that epidemiological data from the South African Medical Research Council's study areas has turned up alarmingly high HIV prevalence among women, ranging from 38 percent to 47 percent.
Under the leadership of Dr Gita Ramjee, the Medical Research Council is involved in four microbicide clinical trials, as well as acceptability and behavioural studies.
More than 13 000 women from various countries are expected to be involved.
Ramjee pointed to computer modelling studies by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which showed that a 60 percent effective microbicide introduced in low-income countries, and used by 20 percent of women, could avert 2.5 million new infections over three years. |
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