EngenderHealth joins the global health community in celebrating proof-of-concept of microbicides

At the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, there was standing ovation in a packed conference hall for the Caprisa 004 microbicide study. As the New York Times reports:

After two decades in which researchers searched fruitlessly for an effective vaginal microbicide to block H.I.V., South African scientists working in two AIDS-devastated communities of South Africa, one rural and one urban, say they have finally found something that shows real promise.

Women who used a vaginal microbicidal gel containing an antiretroviral medication widely used to treat AIDS, tenofovir, were 39 percent less likely over all to contract H.I.V. than those who used a placebo. Those who used the gel most regularly reduced their chances of infection 54 percent, according to a two-and-a-half year study of 889 women by Caprisa, a Durban-based AIDS research center.

Download the official press release (PDF, 168KB).