HIV and Aids researchers have vowed to continue responding to the pandemic through research despite negative results in recent human trials.

Addressing journalists at a media training workshop in Pittsburgh ahead of the International Conference on Microbicides 2010, International Partnership for Microbicides chief executive Dr Zeda Rosenberg expressed hope that a breakthrough would be found.

"While some trials could have failed, I know that the intervention is going to work. We are going to figure out how to get the right intervention to the right people at the right place. All these women and children are dying while we are trying to have it work and it is depressing," she said.

Co-chair of the Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic Study, Professor Mike Chirenje said microbicide research in Zimbabwe had assisted many women with health education.

The Voice Study -- under the auspices of the University of Zimbabwe and the University of San Francisco in California -- seeks to evaluate if common antiretroviral drugs tenofovir and truvada can be used to prevent HIV transmission from men to women.

Prof Chirenje said: "The more educated women are, the more powerful they become."

Tenofovir is also being tested in South Africa under the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa.

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and director of the Caprisa research, said their results would not directly affect other trials such as the Voice study.

"If it fails to protect women, it might be a question of wrong dosages or adherence to the drug by participants and if it proves to protect women it will add value to similar trials," Prof Karim said.
 

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