Women who used the microbicide PRO 2000 were 30 percent less likely to become infected with the virus that causes AIDS compared to women using no gel or an unmedicated product, said Salim Abdool Karim, a Columbia University researcher who presented the findings yesterday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections held in Montreal.

 

“It’s very exciting that PRO 2000 might have a positive effect. Now we need a trial that’s big enough to show whether this is a statistically significant effect,” Karim added.

 

Currently another study of the vaginal gel is being conducted by the London-based Medical Research Council, which includes about 9,500 women, three times the number involved in Karim’s study.

 

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci agreed with Karim saying the results are encouraging although more data are needed to determine whether PRO 2000 protects women from HIV infection.

 

“An effective microbicide would be a valuable tool that women could use to protect themselves against HIV and one that could substantially reduce the number of new HIV infections worldwide,” Fauci said.

 

According to UNAIDS estimates, there are now 33.2 million people living with HIV, including 2.5 million children. During 2007 some 2.5 million people became newly infected with the virus. Around half of all people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.

 

Around 95 percent of people with HIV/AIDS live in developing nations. But HIV today is a threat to men, women and children on all continents around the world.