Scientists on Monday reported failure in a large African trial of three different ways to protect women against H.I.V,New York Times Reports

The study, known as Voice, for Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic, followed more than 5,000 women in South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Some were given daily pills to take containing the antiretroviral drug tenofovir, some got pills with Truvada (tenofovir and a booster drug), and some got a tenofovir-containing vaginal gel.

Although 95 percent of the women in the study made their monthly clinic visits, and 70 percent said they were using the pills or gel, blood tests suggested that only 25 percent actually were.

Although the study did not explain why adherence was so poor, Mitchell Warren, the director of AVAC, an AIDS prevention advocacy group, said that apparently “these women just had the sense that ‘H.I.V. won’t happen to me.’ ”

The failure was due not to the methods — two different pills and a vaginal gel — but to the fact that the women did not use them consistently.

By UP