Local scientists lead study of anti-HIV gel
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The Big Read:
South African scientists are launching an important HIV clinical trial to confirm the efficacy of a gel that reduces the risk of women getting HIV.
FIRST FOR SA: Professor Helen Rees, executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute Picture: WHO 'Our results are mixed. We need to do more targeted prevention'
This is the first South African-led consortium to conduct HIV research at seven centres, said the executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute, Professor Helen Rees.
Until now, multi-site trials were led by international scientists collaborating with local peers.
"The planning for the Facts study is well under way and we hope to be in the field by August," said Rees.
The past year has seen a revolution in HIV-prevention research sparked by three exciting results - one being the gel.
A Tenofovir vaginal gel proved 39% effective at protecting young women from HIV and halved the risk of Herpes HSV-2, according to the Caprisa 004 study in KwaZulu-Natal.
Facts aims to confirm these results.
Until now, the most effective prevention options have been condom use, prevention of mother to child HIV transmission, or PMTCT, medical male circumcision and HIV counselling and testing.
South Africa has made dramatic gains since 2008 in:
Reducing the number of six-week-old infants infected with HIV from 8% to 3.5% nationally, through its PMTCT programme; Expanding medical male circumcision, with 140000 men nationally being circumcised; and Expanding access to condoms, with plans to distribute 1billion male condoms and 6million female condoms this year. 网易体育 12million South Africans were tested for HIV since April last year.
Department of Health deputy director-general Dr Yogan Pillay said: "We are doing a lot . [but] our results are very mixed. We need to do more targeted prevention."
The old slogan for prevention "ABC - abstain, be faithful and condomise" - is inadequate for South Africa's HIV epidemic.
For example, married women may get HIV from unfaithful husbands who refuse to wear condoms with them.
Professor Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre For Aids Programme Research in South Africa, said: "The tools we have are mismatched for the epidemic. We need women-controlled methods."
Recent studies show HIV-negative women and men can be protected from the virus by antiretroviral drugs. This approach is known as Prep, or pre-exposure prophylaxis. Prep options show potential and will shape the HIV/Aids national strategic plan for South Africa 2012/16.
Rees said: "We need to act on these results, but we also need to build in checks and balances so that the wheels of the fragile healthcare system do not come off.
Read more at Times LIVE