HIV Cure News: New Gel Could Protect Women From Virus That Causes AIDS

An HIV preventetive product may not be far away. Accordign to the Science Translational Medicine journal, researchers are making a major break through in the development a vaginal gel that could protect women against HIV. According to the study, as opposed to other gels that are exclusively preventional, the new gel being developed could "protect against vaginal SHIV infection when administered shortly before or 3 hours after virus exposure."

At this point the gel is still being tested on animals. The team of American scientists found that the gel protected five out of six monkeys from an animal-human lab strain of HIV. The researchers found that the gel prevented infection when used both immediately before AND up to three hours after infection. This is an important breakthrough for the global HIV fight, as it could lead to new ways of HIV prevention, particularly in rape cases, which coninues to be a serious problem globally.

The breakthrough comes as last week news emerged that scientists in South Africa have reportedly mapped the evolution of an antibody that kills different HIV strains. This finding is significant, as the scientists believe that the antibody will lead to a vaccine that will put a stop to the incurable disease. Earlier this year, a new study from the German Research Centre for Environmental Health, in Munich, found that HIV treatments could be found in geranium plants.