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SOUTH AFRICA TO INVESTIGATE MICROBICIDE TRIAL

February 9, 2007

The media and activists in South Africa have begun questioning the safety of HIV microbicide trials, one of which was halted last week after preliminary results showed the drug candidate -- Polydex Pharmaceuticals' Ushercell -- could increase the risk of HIV infection, the U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reports.

In response, South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has ordered a probe into the trial, which enrolled women in South Africa, Benin and Uganda.

There has been public outrage over the latest development, heightened by sensationalized media reports that the trial participants were encouraged to engage in unprotected sex, according to IRIN.

The Treatment Action Campaign, in a statement on its website, calls the rumor "a commonly held myth about microbicide trials which needs to be dispelled. This myth has been perpetuated by at least two senior South African politicians and we have encountered journalists who have mistakenly believed it."

"The termination of the Ushercell trials is a setback for microbicide research. It is unlikely that a successful microbicide will be found in the next few years and it is possible that other ongoing microbicide trials will fail," the group said.

The trial protocols were approved by the country's Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. The MRC has set about to determine whether the study followed protocols and whether the patients were given sufficient information to make informed decisions about their participation, the MRC said on its website.