Vaginal ring reduces risk of HIV by up to 61%

Vaginal ring can safely provide some protection against HIV infection by continuously releasing an experimental antiretroviral drug, say findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
[vaginal ring]The silicone vaginal ring continuously releases the antiretroviral drug, dapivirine.
Image credit: International Partnership for Microbicides.In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 1,218,400 people aged 13 years and above are living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, an estimated 12.8% of whom are unaware of their condition.

In 2014, 25.8 million people in sub-Saharan Africa had been infected with HIV, half of whom were women.A quarter of new cases in the region occur among adolescent girls and young women.
For this reason, finding effective tools to prevent the spread of infection is considered essential.
The ASPIRE HIV protection study, also known as MTN-020, was set up to investigate the effect of vaginal rings that release drugs.

This was a large clinical trial involving 15 sites in four sub-Saharan African countries: Malawi, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe.ASPIRE looked at whether a silicon vaginal ring that continuously released the drug dapivirine could protect against HIV infection. The ring was replaced every 4 weeks.Starting in 2012, the study enrolled 2,629 women aged 18-45 years who did not have HIV but who were at high risk for HIV infection. Data collection continued until September 2015.

The women were randomly assigned to two groups. One group received a ring containing 25 mg of dapivirine, and a control group received a placebo ring.