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Bacterial vaginosis does not affect efficacy of oral PrEP in women
Gus Cairns, 2017-02-23 14:00:00
Research presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2017) found that the efficacy of oral PrEP for women was not affected by bacterial vaginosis (BV) – the overgrowth in the vagina of untypical microbes.
The effectiveness of PrEP in the Partners PrEP study was not significantly different in women with and without BV. This rules out BV as a possible cause for the lower effectiveness of oral PrEP in some studies in women, compared to studies in men who have sex with men.
However another study did find that tissue concentrations of the drug tenofovir were lower in women with BV who used a microbicide gel – corroborating a difference in effectiveness already noticed in the CAPRISA 004 gel study.
Studies are now being conducted to find out if BV affected the efficacy of vaginal rings.
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