Despite an encouraging announcement in July about a potential microbicide gel that would protect women from contracting HIV during intercourse, funding for two trials to confirm the initial findings have stalled.
Scientists have been working for two decades to develop an effective microbicide gel. The latest research performed by South African researchers examined a vaginal gel carrying the antiviral tenofovir. Women who used the gel before and after sex were found to be 39% less likely to contract HIV, while those who used the gel most regularly saw a 54% risk reduction, compared to a control group receiving a placebo.
Of the $100 million needed for the two follow-up studies, only $58 million has been pledged, said the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS or UNAIDS.
The goal of the two additional studies is to provide evidence to support adoption of the gel on a large scale. Researchers plan to lead one of the confirmatory studies in South Africa, home to the world's highest HIV/AIDS infection rate, while the second study would be conducted in five Southern Africa countries.
"We have to close the funding gap and get the gel to women," said Dr. Catherine Hankins, chief scientific adviser at UNAIDS.
So far, the US and South African governments have come up with the majority of additional research money while the UK Department for International Development, a major supporter of microbicide research, has committed nothing. In a statement, the British agency said future spending "will be made based on impact on poverty eradication on the ground."
Nonetheless, the microbicide has offered a forum for combating HIV in a time where there are very few options, and if the gel were to be implemented “in a way similar to the [initial] trial we could prevent 1.3 million new infections and 800,000 deaths in South Africa alone over the next 20 years”, said Salim Abdool Karim from the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa, or CAPRISA, who co-led the research with his wife, Quarraisha.
Investing in HIV prevention is far sounder when it comes to income received by the government than by providing lifelong AIDS treatment, experts say. Providing antiretroviral therapy to the 5 million people in Africa already receiving treatment will cost $72 billion over the next four decades, according to Mead Over, a health economist at the Center for Global Development. That amount rises to $225 billion if the number of people on treatment continues to grow, said Over.

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