Donald G. McNeil Jr. of The New York Times is reporting that a trial in Africa of three HIV-preventative drugs for women recently failed. According to the scientists behind the study, the participants failed to keep to their medication regimens, two of which included pills and the other a vaginal gel. Previous studies have been done that show the positive effects of using these preventative measures, and AIDS experts insist that the results of this study, known as Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic (VOICE), should not discourage donors from backing further similar research. AIDS prevention advocacy groups claim that the women in the study, much like many youth in Africa, simply believe that they won’t become infected.
McNeil writes:
The study … followed more than 5,000 women in South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Some were given daily pills to take containing the antiretroviral drug tenofovir, some got pills with Truvada (tenofovir and a booster drug), and some got a tenofovir-containing vaginal gel.
Although 95 percent of the women in the study made their monthly clinic visits, and 70 percent said they were using the pills or gel, blood tests suggested that only 25 percent actually were.
Read more at The New York Times.
This news brief was written by Kaitlin Higgins.
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