http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=935767

But clinical trials of the Pro 2000 microbicidal gel showed only 30 percent efficacy in preventing the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases.

Though 33 percent efficacy is needed for a study to be declared statistically successful, the trials are considered significant.

The study, by the HIV prevention unit of the Medical Research Council, found that the risk of infection in women who used the vaginal gel was reduced by a third compared with women using an unmedicated product or not using a gel.

The director of the unit, Professor Gita Ramjee, said: “After working for more than a decade in microbicide research, we are seeing a glimmer of hope of finding a safe and effective microbicide, which could protect women and substantially reduce HIV infection.”

Tests were done on 3050 women in the US, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa. The results were released simultaneously yesterday at Durban’s RK Khan Hospital and at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, in Canada.

The Gender Advocacy Programme said women should treat the results of the study with caution, but a gel that reduced the HIV infection rate would radically alter women’s rights in sexual relationships.

“W ith something like the gel, which they can use by themselves, women are at an advantage. But they must not be recklessly over-confident in a gel. The safest sex is with a condom, or abstinence,” the programmes’ s spokesman, Raashied Galant, said.