Today the world has been rocked by the good news that South African scientists have developed a gel, which if applied inside the vagina or anus of the female, will prevent HIV infections up to 39% of the time. While this sounds like an astonishing achievement, and a positive move in the fight against the pandemic sweeping Africa, this raises a few interesting points and questions for me.
1) The TV news this evening mentioned that 50% of the female test subjects were given the new gel and the other 50% a placebo. A placebo in this case would mean a blank, generic gel which has no effect or protective qualities at all. Bear in mind this was reported on SABC news, so while I am left wondering whether the people at the state's broadcaster slash mouth-piece, said too much - or whether they even got it right - however, this article is written based on the possibility they were correct.
2) It doesn't take much intelligence to figure out that the use of this gel in such a test - during sexual intercourse - would mean NOT using other safety precautions such as condoms, because then you would have spoiled test results in a test that would need definite results either way.
3) Of course, considering the point of the tests, proving HIV infection statistics using the gel, the female test subjects would have to be HIV negative to begin with, and all the male subjects would naturally have to be HIV positive - because to my limited knowledge, two HIV negative people can't infect each other with HIV, with or without any form of protection, no matter how hard they try. I could of course be wrong, as I am not a doctor, and therefore only an idiot.
