Protecting women from AIDs

Providing women with the means to protect themselves from getting the AIDS virus, when their male partners refuse to use condoms is critical in combating the current epidemic. This is especially vital in Africa, where women comprise 60% of all AIDS victims on the continent,http://thepet.vpconstructionandstone.com/index.php?p=blogs/viewstory/298816,long formal dresses.* As a result, approximately 3,500 African women in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa,Uganda and Rwanda are being given the chance to volunteer for a major clinical trial titled ASPIRE to test the effectiveness of inserting a vaginal ring coated with an anti-AIDS drug in protecting them from HIV infection.

Participants will be given either a dapivirine-containing vaginal ring or an identical look-alike minus the drug. The goal is to see whether using the ring reduces their risk of becoming infected with HIV by at least 60%.

"The device marks an attempt at the next generation of women-focused prevention tools," commented Dr. Carl Dieffenbach of the US National Institutes of Health at the International AIDS Conference yesterday,christian louboutin shoes.*

Previous attempts to use anti-AIDS vaginal gels offered only partial protection, since many women found it difficult to use every time they had sex,sexy evening dresses. However, the new ring would only have to be inserted once a month allowing the drug to ooze slowly into surrounding tissue for continuing protection.

"We need options that readily fit into women's lives," added Dr. Sharon Hiller of the Univerisyt of Pittsburgh and Microbide Trials Network, which is conducting the new NIH study.

"Vaginal-based protection should cause fewer side effects than pills, and early-stage studies of the ring found no problems," stated Zeda Rosenberg, chief executive of the International Partnership for Microbicides. "Additionally,http://www.spunlive.com/blogs/entry/massive-variety-of-items-from-corssfitclothing-website, animal studies show no sign that the ring would harm a fetus if a woman became pregnant while using it," she added.

Rosenberg's group licensed dapivirine from a Johnson Johnson subsidiary. If the new research pans out, the partnership hopes to seek approval to sell the ring in 2015.

*It was also reported at the Conference that researchers have found more evidence that male circumcision is an important HIV-prevention tool in Africa, where it helps protect men from becoming infected by female partners,evening dresses with sleeves. A prime example of this is in Orange Farm, South Africa, where slightly more than half of the 52,000 men there had been circumcised last year (up from 17% in 2008). "Circumcised men had half the rate of HIV infection as the uncircumcised," said Bertran Auvert of France's University of Versailles,http://www.bbccons.com. He estimated that 1,000 new infections were avoided last year as a result