AIDS has been with us since 1981. And it’s not going away anytime soon.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS infects 36.9 million people all over the world, according to the latest stats released. Two million people are infected every
year and more than a million die of AIDS. In the U.S., over 1.2 million people have HIV, and about 50,000 people are newly infected each year. That is why prevention is key.
There’s no vaccine against HIV, but taking a preventative drug every day can protect women from catching the virus. Currently the approved form of Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is the use of a daily pill containing the anti-HIV drugs tenofovir and emtricitabine (the brand name Truvada). It has been approved for gay men, and heterosexual men and women who are at risk of sexual transmission of HIV.
The new vaginal ring containing anti-HIV drugs reduced infection risk by 27 percent overall in earlier trials. But that percentage was much higher in some groups, leading to the new tests by U.S. health officials to get more accurate stats.
“It’s worth finding out why the ring worked so well in older women but not at all in the youngest women,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is footing the bill for the study in the U.S. and Africa. “It is very clear that this can work under certain circumstances.”
The ring releases an anti-HIV drug called dapirivine and is inserted once a month and then kept in place to provide protection against sexual transmission of HIV with total discretion.
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