Vaginal rings are helping fight HIV transmission in women

Our customers are working on some remarkable products and innovations. One such innovation, a vaginal ring, is helping lower the risk of HIV transmission in women in sub-Saharan Africa.

The flexible ring is easily inserted and slowly releases an anti-viral drug after insertion. Close to 37 million people are HIV positive worldwide and more than half are women. The majority of these women live in sub-Saharan Africa where two recent studies of this vaginal ring were conducted.

“The hope was to find something that could be usable enough by women that it would provide H.I.V. protection, and that’s what we got,” said Dr. Jared M. Baeten, from the University of Washington. Two recent studies of more than 4,500 African women looked at how the ring helped protect women against H.I.V. infection from their sexual partners.

Our texture analyzers are used frequently for testing vaginal rings that are used for HIV and other STD protections. From testing the physical properties of the ring itself to measuring the rates of swelling and disintegration, our texture analyzers offer researchers a wide range of testing capabilities when developing new products and improving existing ones.

Read a New York Times article on this innovation here.

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