Global Pulse Blog

Britain’s Medical Research Council (MRC) announced that the Pro 2000, a vaginal microbicide gel, was ineffective in preventing the spread of HIV infection in a trial conducted in four African counties. PRO 2000 works by inhibiting the entry of HIV into cells .The trial was sponsored by the Microbicides Development Program (MDP), a not-for-profit partnership of 16 African and European research institutions took place between September 2005 and September 2009, involved 9,385 women .

Sheena McCormack, who led the trial, was disappointed in the results because a smaller trial held earlier, indicated that that the results for the current larger trial would be different from what they were. The smaller trial included more than 3,099 women and was funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH. The sites include 6 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and one site in the United States. The results of the smaller trial were presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Montreal, Canada in February. These results indicted that the Pro 2000 gel would reduce transmission rated by 30 %. Earliers this year, ENDO Pharmaceuticals purchased the PRO 2000 from Indevus Pharmaceuticals.

Currently, women make up half of all people worldwide living with HIV and in sub-Saharan Africa, women represent nearly 60 percent of adults living with HIV.

In most cases, women become infected with HIV through sexual intercourse with an infected male partner. Manufacturers were hoping that this microbicide would be a potential solution for hose whose partners refuse to use condoms and could have empowered women with a prevention method they could initiate. Even though this microbicide failed to prevent the spread of HIV, scientists have not given up hope, as here are currently dozens of microbicides being tested. A previous post on the Global Pulse Blog discusses the debates that have taken place about the role of microbicides on HIV prevention.