In breakthrough,gel to protect women from AIDS

For the first time,a vaginal gel has proved capable of blocking the AIDS virus: It cut in half a womans chances of getting HIV from an infected partner in a study in South Africa....

For the first time,a vaginal gel has proved capable of blocking the AIDS virus: It cut in half a womans chances of getting HIV from an infected partner in a study in South Africa. Scientists called it a breakthrough in the long quest for a tool to help women whose partners wont use condoms.

The results need to be confirmed in another study,and that level of protection is probably not enough to win approval of the microbicide gel in countries like the US,researchers say. But they are optimistic it can be improved.

We are giving hope to women, who account for most new HIV infections,said Michel Sidibe in a statement. He is executive director of the World Health Organizations UNAIDS program. A gel could help us break the trajectory of the AIDS epidemic, he said.

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And Dr Anthony Fauci of the US National Institutes of Health said,Its the first time weve ever seen any microbicide give a positive result that scientists agree is true evidence of protection.

The gel,spiked with the AIDS drug tenofovir,cut the risk of HIV infection by 50 per cent after one year of use and 39 per cent after 2 1/2 years,compared to a gel that contained no medicine. To be licensed in the US,a gel or cream to prevent HIV infection may need to be at least 80 per cent effective,Fauci said. That might be achieved by adding more tenofovir or getting women to use it more consistently.

The gel also cut in half the chances of getting HSV-2,the virus that causes genital herpes. Other sexually spread diseases raise the risk of catching HIV. Even partial protection is a huge victory that could be a boon not just in poor countries but for couples anywhere when one partner has HIV, said Dr Salim Abdool Karim,the South African who led the study. In South Africa,where one in three girls is infected with HIV by age 20,this gel could prevent 1.3 million infections and 826,000 deaths over the next two decades,he calculated. He will present results of the study Tuesday at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna. The research was published online Monday by the journal Science.