These are the STI-fighting super-condoms you don’t need

published on October 25, 2016 by Niko Bell, in DAILY Xtra

VivaGel condoms promise protection from viruses. But do they really work?

Condoms are an imperfect tool. They slip. They break. They leak. In a laboratory setting, condoms are a practically perfect impenetrable barrier against viruses, but in the real world, they struggle to be invincible; condoms have an 80–85 percent reduction rate for HIV infection, and are even less effective against HPV and herpes. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a next-generation condom that not only provided a barrier against infection, but also actively destroyed viruses in semen, mucus or vaginal fluid?

Well now we do. Maybe.

On Sept 13, 2016, pharmaceutical company Starpharma announced that it has secured Health Canada approval for condoms imbued with VivaGel, a drug it says deactivates nearly all HIV, HPV and herpes viruses in the lab.

The condoms, marketed as LifeStyles Dual Protect, will hit shelves in Canada in 2017. The size of the asterisk hovering over the company’s health claims, however, should give pause to anyone hoping for a bulletproof defense against sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Starpharma’s condoms are coated with an antimicrobial gel full of large organic polymer molecules called astodrimer, which bond to the outside of bacteria and viruses and deactivate them (since viruses aren’t precisely alive, “kill” isn’t quite the right word). In a petri dish, studies show the gel knocks out 99.9 percent of HIV, HPV and herpes virus. Starpharma has also dosed semen and vaginal fluid with the drug, and shown a similar reduction in viral load.

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BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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These are the STI-fighting super-condoms you don’t need

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