An easy-to-use microbicidal gel proven to significantly reduce the risk of HIV infection would be a very important breakthrough in the fight to control the spread of HIV/Aids.
The best way to minimise the risk of infection during sex is to use a condom - but this is not an option for many women around the world who find it difficult to insist that a man take the necessary precautions.
As a result, women have become particularly vulnerable to infection in recent years and in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the Aids pandemic is most severe, they make up nearly 60% of those who are infected with the virus.
To compound the problem, science has shown that women are biologically more at risk of infection than men.
An effective gel would finally give women the chance to do something to protect themselves from infection - to take control of their own sexual health.
However, several earlier trials have produced disappointing results, and even the results of the latest trial - impressive though they are - underline that a gel is far from a fail-safe form of protection.
The latest results also need to replicated in a much bigger trial.
But provided a gel could be made widely accessible to women in some of the world's poorest countries, where it is needed the most, it could help to transform many lives for the better.
1 comments:
I am really happy that scientists amaze us always with new breakthroughs that can change the life of many poor African women as well as restrict the spread of the epidemic disease (HIV AIDS)that destroys millions of people around the world .
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