Researchers have tested many vaccines and gels to see their efficiency in HIV prevention, but without success. However, things appear to go in the right direction, according to a new study in the journal Nature.

 

According to it, a cheap commonly-used compound shielded monkeys from a lethal cousin of HIV, giving hope that it may work in humans too. The compound, called glycerol monolaurate, or GML, is already being used as an antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory agent in cosmetics and food products.

 

For the study, researchers at the University of Minnesota, tested GML on a group of monkeys, applying it to the female sexual organs of five of the primates. Another four animals got a gel without GML. Then the monkeys were exposed to a large dose of SIV, the primate version of HIV.

 

The researchers found that the four animals not given GML got AIDS while those treated with GML showed no sign of infection during the short-term study. Only one of them showed signs of infection several months later.

 

GML could be part of a combined strategy with another vaginal microbicide, such as PRO 2000, with a different mechanism of action,” study researcher Ashley T. Haase, MD, head of the microbiology department at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, said.

 

Now the researchers want to begin studies that will confirm the compound works and to try to find doses that “are more applicable to the real world,” Haase said. If the compound proves effective in humans too, many cases of HIV worldwide will be avoided. Most of the HIV infections worldwide are contracted vaginally. Condoms can block the virus. However, when women want to get pregnant they don’t use them and risk infection from their partners, researchers say.