The INFO Project Blog

An exciting and promising discovery was announced at Microbicides 2008 in New Delhi, India.  According to a six-month study of 200 women in India and the United States a vaginal microbicde gel containing the antiretroviral agent tenofovir is safe for HIV-negative women to use every day.

The study was performed by researchers at the Microbicides Trial Network and was designed to see if there were differences in adherence rates between women who use the product every day and women who use the product only prior to engaging in sexual intercourse.  The study also was designed to test if sex act-dependent and daily use were equally safe.  Researchers found women’s adherence to either regime similar and found both approaches equally safe.  The compliance rate was 83 percent among women in the daily use group, and 80 percent among women instructed to use the gel within two hours of having sex.  

According to Dr. Hiller, chief investigator of the Microbicde Trial Network  study:

“Finding that daily use is both safe and feasible is important because we believe a daily approach may provide more sustainable protection against the virus in women who can’t always predict when they will have sex. Based on what we have learned we can proceed with greater confidence on a path that will answer whether tenofovir gel and other gels with HIV-specific compounds will be able to prevent sexual transmission of HIV in women when other approaches have failed to do so. It is a critical time for all of us engaged in HIV prevention, and I truly believe we are turning a corner,”

Those of us in the field of HIV prevention have been waiting a long time now for the availability of  a successful microbicide to prevent HIV.  The fact that the potential for the safe every day use of microbicides exists is indeed good news.