Gels, creams and melting condoms
Liquid condom? Sounds kinky, but it could actually be a clever and much-needed health tool. Scientists have come up with a condom that forms a gel-like coating in the acidic vagina. When it comes into contact with the alkaline pH of semen, it turns into liquid, releasing an antiviral drug against HIV.
This particular product, described in December's Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, is still years from clinical use, but the Chinese are one step ahead. They've got something called the "Nanometer-silver Cryptomorphic Condom" -- a real mood-killer, that name -- which is a spray foam that forms a thin membrane in the vagina.
For the skeptical, there are also several products in the pipeline that would replace condoms. Called microbicides, they're gels or creams that women could use to protect themselves from HIV, in most cases without the knowledge of their partner. There are 16 of these in trials and results on 5 of them are expected next year.
It's becoming increasingly obvious that to fight AIDS, we'll have to come up with ways to protect women -- particularly those who don't have much choice about using condoms, whether it is because they are sex workers at the mercy of a john, or housewives at the whim of their husbands. The more options we can give them to protect themselves, the better.
Comments
Please take care when you suggest that microbicides will "replace" condoms.
The likelihood is that the efficacy of any one preventon technology (microbicides, diaphragms, male and female condoms etc) will be such that advice will still be to take a 'belt and braces' approach. That means that even as new technologies become available, no organisation (WHO etc) is likely to advocate that we can forget about condoms, but that HIV prevention options have a cumulative effect.
One of the fears about coverage of recent data showing an HIV 'protective' effect for male circumcision, for example, is that circumcised men may feel inappropriately 'safe' when it comes to HIV transmission or acquisition. Being circumcised does not mean you no longer have to use condoms - just as having a micobicide available will not mean we can forget condoms either.
What the promise of a microbicide does offer is more future choices for people about the options for HIV prevention that suit them best - in particular for vulnerable women.
Posted by: Tim France | January 4, 2007 10:24 PM
I think that's a good point, Emily. Whatever options they come up with will have to be cheap enough that women can buy them without anyone else's permission.
Posted by: apoorva | January 4, 2007 06:02 PM
It's good to hear that options are on the way. But picture a woman in the kind of environment or relationship in which she has no choice about using condoms or having sex…a powerless situation no doubt. I wonder if this woman would be in any position to demand or even ask for alternative protection for herself.
Posted by: EW | January 4, 2007 05:58 PM