HEALTH: UN Launches Study on Product Designed to Prevent AIDS

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 14 1996 (IPS) - A United Nations programme has launched a study on an anti-bacterial product for vaginal use that could prevent the heterosexual transmission of the Human Immuno- Deficiency Virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Spokespersons for the UN programme on HIV/AIDS reported Tuesday that the study will evaluate the effectiveness and innocuousness of the product known as Advantage 24.

The study is being carried out with the participation of some 2,000 women at several international centres in South Africa and Thailand. The subjects are women at high risk of being infected with HIV and other STDs, who are already participating in programmes on the systemmatic use of condoms.

Advantage 24, developed by Columbia Laboratories, a Miami-based company specialising in women’s health products, combines the properties of nonoxynol-9 — which has been used as a spermicide for more than 30 years — with those of a bio-adhesive gel.

The UN programme stressed the urgent need for new methods for preventing the heterosexual transmission of HIV.

More than 75 percent of all cases of AIDS worldwide are caused by sexual transmission. And female victims of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are steadily growing in number. Today there are nearly nine million HIV-positive women in the world, of a total of 21 million infected adults.

The chief efforts being carried out today to curb the spread of AIDS consist of urging safe sex and the use of condoms, and the prevention and treatment of other STDs.

The UN programme recognised that all known methods of protection for women require the cooperation of their male partners, which is not always forthcoming, particularly in some regions of the world. That makes it difficult or impossible for many women to ensure safe sex.

The U.N. programme is stressing the need for research on preventive methods that women can use without having to depend on their partners. An anti-bacterial product for vaginal use responds to that need.

Previous clinical studies indicate that Advantage 24 has a low level of toxicity, unlike similar products.

Under UN supervision, the product’s innocuousness has been demonstrated in experiments with more than 600 women in Europe and Thailand.

The level of toxicity has been shown to be acceptable, even when the product is used four times a day. Its long-term innocuousness was shown in three-month-long clinical trials.

Based on those experiments, it was judged that the simultaneous evaluation of the innocuousness of Advantage 24 and the protection it provides against HIV and other STDs is now justified.

“By offering women an effective method of prevention, whose use depends solely on themselves, we increase the chances of curbing the transmission” of HIV and other STDs, said the executive director of the UN programme on HIV/AIDS, Peter Piot.