Researchers in Brazil prepare to announce pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV

 

Be concerned about how the media approach to disclosure iPrEx, researchers involved in this project in Brazil held on Thursday in Sao Paulo, a meeting with journalists and other media professionals. IPrEx is an international program of research that examine the effectiveness of pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV, or the use of anti-AIDS drugs by healthy people to reduce the risk of infection.

Alexandre Menezes, representatives of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) in Brazil - an entity that also helped in promoting the meeting in Sao Paulo, argues that pre-exposure prophylaxis must be presented as a means of reducing the chance of spreading HIV and not as the only method of prevention and condom replacement.

The infectious disease physician Esper Kallas, Faculty of Medicine, USP and one of the main drivers iPrEx in Brazil, explained the methodology of this study. For him, no matter what the results iPrEx, explain to journalists and the effectiveness and limitations of this new method of prevention. "This is a landmark on the world which is the pre-exposure prophylaxis to HIV," he said.

Artur Kalichman, researcher and assistant coordinator of the State Program of STD / AIDS in Sao Paulo, talked about the Brazilian participation in the Research Network for Vaccines for HIV (HVTN in English).

He has perspective on the possible creation and use of a vaccine in controlling the AIDS pandemic. Product with a vaccine efficacy of low (around 40%), for example, if used for 80% of the population would decrease by 68% the chances of new infections. If efficacy was average (70%), reduce by 86%.

The journalists present at the meeting summarized the study suggested presentations to large media and publishing articles explaining.

About iPrEx

The human trials of pre-exposure prophylaxis was completed in August and research is now at the stage of entering data. In monkeys, the efficacy was 100%.

Besides the three centers in Brazil (USP School of Medicine, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro), eight other research centers participating in the study in the United States, Thailand, South Africa, Peru and Ecuador.

Of the 350 Brazilian volunteers - all men who have sex with men - half and half a placebo tablet daily combination of tenofovir and emtricitabine, antiretroviral drugs without many side effects and reactions in the body longer. All also received guidance on the necessity of condoms for safe sex, among other recommendations.

Now in the stage of tabulation, the results of the two groups are compared to verify the effectiveness of remedies. The study predicted that volunteers make frequent tests for HIV and that in case of infection were removed from the study and were receiving treatment.

The choice of target was because circumcision and microbicides are being evaluated in populations of women and heterosexual men, while the options available to the population of gays, bisexuals and transsexuals are limited.

IPrEx lasted a year and a half, and was promoted by the U.S. government in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and coordinated by the University of California at San Francisco.