Abdool Karim

We've had a mixed bag of results in trying to get women to use tenofovir gel for HIV protection, the main concern has been many of these young individuals who are at highest risk for herpes and HIV don't actually consider themselves at risk. They don't appreciate their risk. It's the same for alcohol consumption, dangerous driving or smoking or any of these things.

The problem is, right now it's not available. And taking tenofovir tablets instead of the gel doesn't have the same benefit, you see some protection with tablets, but the levels of protection are much lower.

Because it's in the gel formulation, it leads to very high levels in the genital tract and very low levels in the blood, so very little is absorbed and Connie Celum get very limited side effects, we did see a slight increase in mild diarrhea and it wasn't statistically significant.