New HIV Prevention Strategies Urged

With no viable AIDS vaccine on the near horizon slowing the runaway train that is the worlds AIDS pandemic is going to require implementing other prevention strategies on a large scale. While much of the worlds attention has been on finding ways to make anti-HIV drug treatment accessible to the millions worldwide preventing new infections is crucial to keep treatment needs from continuing to outstrip treatment efforts said public health experts clinicians and others meeting here at the 15th International AIDS Conference. Without a greatly expanded prevention effort treatment is simply not sustainable said Peter Piot MD MPH who heads the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). In an epidemic that is disproportionately affecting women due to biological and social factors a particularly urgent need is prevention methods women can control even without the cooperation of male partners said Zeda Rosenberg MD chief executive officer of the International Partnership for Microbicides. Currently available HIV prevention strategies—abstinence a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner and condom use—while important are just not enough especially for women said Rosenberg. Married women or women who do not have control over if they have sex cannot choose abstinence and in most cases it is the male partner who chooses whether a condom is used she said. In addition many women who are faithful contract HIV from a husband or long-term partner who is not. (excerpt)