Originally published November 3 2005
Drug companies begin the process of developing microbicides to protect women against HIV
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
At the behest of the International Partnership for Microbicides, Merck & Co and Bristol-Myers Squibb have agreed to develop a cream that will defend women against HIV infection.
Merck & Co Inc and Bristol-Myers Squibb have signed separate license agreements with the International Partnership for Microbicides to develop such a product, long sought by doctors and advocates as a way for women as well as some men to prevent infection.
Many such compounds are in development but all are experimental, and this is the first time a very big drug company has signed on to help make one.
"The search for an effective microbicide is crucial to providing women with more options to protect themselves against HIV infection," said Dr Peter Piot, Executive Director of the United Nations Aids organisation UNAids.
"Worldwide, nearly half of all (HIV) infections are in women," Dr Zeda Rosenberg, Chief Executive Officer of IPM, told reporters in a telephone briefing.
In sub-Saharan Africa, the region by far the worst hit by Aids, half of all people infected with the Aids virus are women and young girls, she added.
"Existing HIV prevention strategies include sexual abstinence and the use of male and female condoms," Rosenberg said.
Combinations of drugs can help control the virus and keep people healthy - if they can get the drugs.
Doctors agree that a vaccine is the best way to control Aids, which is mostly transmitted sexually but also through blood, shared needles and from mother to child during birth and while breast-feeding.
It is a new approach, said Dr Helene Gayle, who heads Aids, tuberculosis and malaria funding for the philanthropic Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
A study published in the journal Nature this week by Dr John Moore of the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Dr Ronald Veazey of the Tulane National Primate Research Centre found that eight of 14 monkeys were protected from SHIV if treated with a microbicide two to six hours before being given the virus.
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