The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, NIMR, says it is currently working on a novel Microbycides Gel for the prevention of HIV among women.
Dr Sabdat Ekama, a Research Fellow at the Clinical Science Department in NIMR told journalists in Lagos that microbycides is a medicament containing anti-HIV agents. It would be applied vaginally or rectally to prevent HIV infection.
According to her, globally, women are disproportionately affected by HIV, because heterosexual intercourse is a major mode of male-to-female HIV transmission.
She said several prevention methods had been put in place over the years, such as post-exposure prophylaxis, prevention of mother -to-child transmission, pre-exposure prophylaxis, and among others.
Ekama explained that despite these preventive methods, annual HIV global statistics team reported 1.3 million new infections globally in 2024, hence the urgent need for strategies to prevent new infections.
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She said: “Over the years, researchers have worked on microbycides development.
“However, majority of them failed in clinical trials because they were fraught with challenges.
“We look at the gaps and the lacunas of the previous HIV microbycides and look at how we can close these gaps to produce a novel job microbycides vagina gel that will be suited for use amongst women.
“We have produced a smart gel that is designed to be temperature-sensitive, such that, when it is liquid and room temperature, if applied into the body system, it becomes highly viscous to prevent leakage.
“We employed targeted drug delivery method to combat the challenges of conventional microbycides by using two anti-HIV agents, and we looked at the challenges of leakage.
“Previous microbycides gels tested in clinical trials reported challenges of vaginal leakage of home administration, cultural dependence use, wetness, and all these challenges affected adherence to use and compliance to use.”
According to the expert, research works are, at present, in the clinical stage amongst animal models, adding that the team looked forward to favourable outcomes which will be a precursor to human clinical trials.
“This research project has gone to the individual preliminary research stage in which we assessed its safety on vaginal cells and its efficacy on the HIV-1 VL viral stream.
“The results were promising, and this gave us justification to proceed to the animal model pre-clinical studies, and we are also trying to assess the toxicity, the tolerability and the safety in animal models,” she said. (NAN)
