Contraceptive diaphragms should be studied as a potential means for women to protect themselves against AIDS, researchers said on Tuesday.
Diaphragms might offer protection against HIV, but attempts to study whether this would work “have been stymied by the issue of acceptability,” said co-author Dr. Sungai Chipato from the University of Zimbabwe at the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona.
The urgency of the search has been heightened by United Nations figures showing that women make up 58% of people in sub-Saharan Africa who have AIDS or HIV.
Young women in the region are now up to six times more likely than young men to be infected with HIV, a report by the UN Population Fund said. But Western researchers have not considered diaphragms as one of the options, believing that women would not use them, Dr. Chipato said.
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