7 covered = 1 bareback

[sabio]

The US National Institutes of Health conducted a study on the effectiveness of condoms in preventing HIV transmission during vaginal intercourse. The results showed an 85 percent decrease in risk of HIV transmission among consistent condom users versus non-users :: .

 

Seven times safer is nothing to sneeze at when lives are at stake, but I must say that the number is lower than I thought it would be . I would like to get your comments on this before discussing alternative safety measures such as the new fast test kits for prescreening the girls.

 

Here is the summary of the NIH study (on the US State Department web site), and here is the full report (on the NIH web site).

 

[Catalyst]

The condom can break, have holes, have no holes but leak anyway, or not leak but transmit the virus anyway (for example if lambskin condoms, which DON'T protect against HIV, were used!). Also maybe people who said they always used condoms sometimes didn't in spite of what they said.

 

In this study almost 1 percent of couples who used condoms transmitted the virus. I'm not crazy about those odds. One clear message is that using condoms isn't enough, you have to use them properly. Don't depend on cheap ones that can break. Better to bring them from the US or Europe than to buy them in Thailand.

[sabio]

Catalyst

 

You are right. The 1% is a bit scary, but it doesn't look as bad when we consider that it is per year, not per pop.

 

What struck me about the study is that it comes from one of the most respected medical research organizations in the world. I don't think the participants in the study had an incentive to lie about condoms one way or the other. After all, one of each couple started out HIV- knowing that their partner is HIV+ . By the way, all the condoms in the study were latex. I agree with your remarks about the dangers of other types of condoms.

 

I have looked into test kits (only recently approved, take minutes for results) , and I plan to post my information about them.

[Guest]

Are you talking about Oraquik?

 

I think you will find its only FDA approved for HIV1 where the main strain in LOS is HIV2 and many who are HIV+ in Thailand will show up as negative with this product...beleive me

[sabio]

OraQuick is one of them. There is also MedMira Reveal (the 3-minute Canadian kit) which has preliminary FDA approval.

 

Some kits work on HIV-1, and some on both HIV-1 and HIV-2. Some that work on both have only sought FDA approval for HIV-1 because they target western markets (and the time and money cost for FDA field tests is not trivial). Here is a good article about different HIV test kits.

 

[Guest]

I agree what you say about bringing your own condoms I always do!

 

Thaipan

[iuytrede]

many condoms you can buy in Europe or the US are made in Thailand (just look at the package)

Otherwise they are probably made in Malaysia.

[sabio]

I guess good condoms are better than bad condoms :: , but the NIH estimate for the effectiveness of condoms is still lower than I (and a lot of people) thought it would be.

 

The good news is that the absolute risk is quite small. Table 1 of this article says:

 

HIV Infectivity per vaginal intercourse (risk to man) is between 0.03 % and 0.14 %. The NIH study says these numbers should be 7 times lower when a condom is used.

 

[samak]

Says sabio:

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I guess good condoms are better than bad condoms

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that's the first statement i agree with in this thread.

the rest is the usual statistic bullshit....

[sabio]

Says samak:

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the rest is the usual statistic bullshit....

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Ouch .

 

I don't just buy statistics from any which source, but this is the NIH that concluded the one in seven. When the NIH talks, people listen

 

As for the absolute numbers, these may be less reliable, but the range 0.03% to 0.14% is in the middle of all the credible numbers that have been published so far.