The Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) has announced that it is currently developing a novel microbicide gel aimed at preventing the transmission of HIV among women.
Dr. Sabdat Ekama, a Research Fellow in the Clinical Sciences Department at NIMR, announced this during a media briefing held in Lagos.
She noted that the initiative is part of the institute’s ongoing efforts to curb the spread of HIV, particularly among women who remain disproportionately affected by the virus.
“This innovative microbicide gel is designed to offer women more control over their sexual health by serving as a preventive tool against HIV transmission,” Dr. Ekama added.
She added that the research is still in progress, with clinical trials and safety assessments underway.
According to UNAIDS, women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa continue to face higher risks of HIV infection, underscoring the need for targeted prevention methods like microbicides
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Ekama said microbicides 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 in spite of 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.
She said: “Over the years, researchers have actually worked on microbicides 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 microbicides and look at how we can close these gaps to come up with a novel job microbicides vagina gel that will be suited for use by women.
“We have come up with 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 microbicides by using two anti-HIV agents, and we looked at the challenges of leakage.
“Previous microbicides 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 favorable 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 also 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 added.
NAn