Rhode Island: Miriam Hospital to Coordinate Tests of HIV Gel

Kenneth Mayer, a doctor at Miriam Hospital in Providence, R.I., will coordinate trials of a national study to test a topical gel that researchers believe could prevent transmission of HIV to women. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has approved the phase I safety study of Tenofovir at three locations: Philadelphia, New York City and Providence. While there have been other studies on topical HIV prevention, Tenofovir is the first gel to contain an antiretroviral agent -- the same active drug ingredient in the HIV cocktail.

While condom use had been shown to prevent HIV transmission, women are often unable to negotiate the proper use of condoms with their male partners, said Mayer. Gel has a "stealth factor," and could be particularly important to developing countries, where the spread of HIV is rampant and domestic violence is more common, he said. "If [a woman] has access to something... she could use it without her partner even knowing about it," said Mayer, who has been researching HIV for 20 years.

Mayer said Miriam Hospital is also involved in vaccine research, but researchers do not want to limit the modes of prevention while waiting for the perfect HIV vaccine. "It's trying to look at the biological means to prevent HIV," he said. "It's not that we don't think behavioral prevention is important... condom use, dealing with self-esteem, and the risks people take, but we're also realistic and we know that this virus has had a very specific biology over the last two decades."

In other area news, earlier this month Anne De Groot, a researcher at Providence's Brown University received a $2.7 million grant from NIH to further work on an AIDS vaccine.

Back to other CDC news for May 28, 2002

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