In the hope of providing them with some extra protection against the AIDS virus, women in Africa were given diaphragms along with condoms. This was part of a $37-million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded experiment. However, according to San Francisco's University of California, Dr. Nancy Padian, who has been studying AIDS since 1983, the move did not meet with much success.
The results of the study were published on Friday in the online version of The Lancet, the British medical journal.
"We observed no added protective benefit against HIV infection when the diaphragm and lubricant gel were used in addition to condoms and a comprehensive HIV prevention package," the researchers wrote.
The team had carried out the test on 5045 sexually active women in Zimbabwe and South Africa. They were provided with condoms and were also counseled about the prevention, testing and treatment of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Then 50% of the women also received diaphragms with instructions that their men still use condoms. The women were then counseled about risk reduction and were re-evaluated regularly every three months for a period of two years.
The researchers hoped the latex diaphragms used with a lubricant would protect the cervix from the virus. However, the diaphragms still left the vagina exposed and fewer partners of the diaphragm users actually used condoms, despite being instructed to use both methods of protection.
The results, therefore, were not very encouraging. At the end of the trial it was found that there was no significant reduction in the number of occurrences of HIV in the group that received the latex diaphragms. It occurred in about 4% of the women in both groups regardless of whether they had been used the diaphragm or not. In the course of the two year period, 158 out of the 2 472 women given the diaphragms and condoms were infected with HIV, whereas of the 2 476 women given only condoms, 151 became infected with it.
In a statement, Padian remarked, “These results do not support the addition of the diaphragm to current HIV prevention strategies. Condoms remain the only proven barrier method for HIV prevention.”
She found the result most disappointing "for women who still can't negotiate condom use by men."
In their report the researchers wrote: “Women who cannot convince their male partners to use condoms are still in urgent need of a female-controlled method of protection.”
Today almost 40 million people are infected by AIDS all over the world and 25 million are known to have died from it so far. The most common means of transmission and infection today is through unprotected sex.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has always preferred to fund efforts aimed at the containment of the disease rather than just fund drug treatments for people already with AIDS.
It has dedicated $917 million for its prevention projects, which include the provision of condoms and funding research into microbicides, vaccines and new technologies.
