Council Scientists Present Latest Findings at Microbicides Summit Twelve hundred HIV/AIDS advocates, policymakers, researchers, and service providers attended Microbicides 2006, a biennial global conference held April 23–26 in Cape Town, South Africa. It was the fourth such meeting and the first to be held in Africa. Elof D.B. Johansson, vice president of the Population Council’s Center for Biomedical Research, and Ayorinde Ajayi, the Council’s regional director for sub-Saharan Africa, were members of the Scientific Advisory Committee. Gita Ramjee, principal investigator for the Medical Research Council site of the Council’s Phase 3 microbicide trial, was one of three conference co-chairs.  The large-scale clinical trial of the Council-developed product Carraguard®—one of the leading microbicide candidates—is evaluating the product’s efficacy and long-term safety in preventing HIV seroconversion among women. The trial, at three sites in South Africa, began in March 2004, and more than 6,000 women are now enrolled.
The Saturday before the conference, reporters and microbicide researchers from other organizations toured the Empilisweni Centre for Wellness Studies (a trial site in Gugulethu managed by the University of Cape Town) and spoke with trial staff and participants from an earlier study. Council presentations on the progress of Carraguard, one of the first microbicide candidates to enter an advanced clinical trial, attracted a large number of conference participants and substantial press coverage. Council researchers discussed the challenges of testing Carraguard, presented findings from the initial studies, and co-sponsored a satellite session, “Informed Consent in HIV-prevention Trials.” The presentations included information on the Council-developed method for determining whether microbicide applicators in the Carraguard trial were used vaginally and other testing methodologies. An overall update of the progress of the Carraguard trial was also presented. Poster displays featured next-generation microbicide candidates under development at the Council’s Center for Biomedical Research and now in the early stages of testing. Widespread interest in the Council’s decade-long work on informed consent (IC) in clinical trials gave rise to a satellite seminar that drew an audience of 80 people. The seminar was co-sponsored by Family Health International and the Research Triangle Institute. A newly published report on the subject, Informed Consent in HIV Prevention Trials: Report of an International Workshop, was one of the most popular publications offered at the Council’s exhibit table, which was visited by hundreds of conference attendees. (That report and more on the Council’s IC activities are available online at http://www.popcouncil.org/microbicides/ethics.) Nearly 150 visitors to the exhibit signed up to receive information by e-mail from the Council on microbicides, HIV and AIDS, and other topics. Sumen Govender, clinical study manager, was quoted by The Associated Press and United Press International in their conference coverage; the AP story was carried in dozens of US newspapers and on the CNN Web site. Johansson and all three of the Carraguard study-site principal investigators—Ramjee, Khatija Ahmed, and Lydia Altini—were quoted. Local papers carried half a dozen stories mentioning the Council’s Carraguard trial, as did Voice of America and South African Broadcasting. Microbicides are gels being developed to substantially reduce the transmission of HIV—and possibly other sexually transmitted infections—when applied vaginally. An urgent need exists for products that women can use to protect themselves. Women are twice as likely as men to acquire HIV infection from heterosexual intercourse. Yet current strategies for HIV prevention—abstinence, mutual monogamy between HIV-negative partners, condom use, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections—are not available or feasible for many women. |
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