Vaginal ring protects women from HIV infection
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Vaginal ring protects women from HIV infection

This plain-looking silicone ring is rather more useful than it looks. Doped with an experimental antiretroviral drug, when worn in the vagina by women in sub-Saharan Africa it was shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection by as much as 61 percent.

The ring is part of a large study called ASPIRE, which is designed to determine whether an experimental antiretroviral drug called dapivirine can help prevent HIV infection. The study enrolled 2,600 HIV-uninfected women between 18 to 45 years of age in sites around Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. They were all, sadly, at high risk of being infected with HIV.

Each woman was given either a dapivirine or placebo ring at random, which was replaced every four weeks. Over the duration of the study, which started in 2012, their health was monitored by the researchers.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, reveal the intervention to be effective. Across the entire cohort of the study, the dapivirine ring was shown to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV by 27 percent. When the team discarded data relating to women that didn’t return during the study, that figure rose to 37 percent.

Interestingly, when the team looked at data for just those women aged 25 and above, the figure shot up even further, to 61 percent. The team notes that women under 25 seemed to use the ring less consistently, which could account for its decreased efficacy amongst the younger participants.

The ring is, of course, by no means a complete solution to HIV transmission. But it does provide an extra line of defence and is empowering for women having sex in countries where use of condoms is often inconsistent. The researchers will continue to study the ring and its efficacy, particularly trying to establish how they can increase its effectiveness among younger women.

[New England Journal of Medicine via NIAID via Engadget]

Image by International Partnership for Microbicides

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