According to the Office of Women's Health, more than 19 million Americans contract sexually transmitted diseases each year - but that number could soon be on the decline.
Pharmaceutical company Starpharma has created the VivaGel condom, a regular condom with an added lubricant that contains 0.5 percent of astodimer sodium (VivaGel), which can inactivate 99.9 percent of HPV, HIV and herpes (HSV), reported Women's Health Magazine.
"When it comes into contact with those viruses in either semen or in vaginal secretions, it can inactive them," said Jackie Fairley, chief executive officer of Starpharma. Fairley added that the risk of being infected with STDs depends on the number of particles to which one is exposed. Since the VivaGel condom inactivates 99.9 percent, the risk of STD transmission is greatly reduced.
This comes as good news, since STDs like herpes and HPV can spread from skin-to-skin contact, making it difficult for regular condoms to provide complete protection.
But some aren't so sure about VivaGel's effectiveness. Dr. Anna-Barbara Moscicki, an HPV expert and pediatrics professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told the Huffington Post she researched how VivaGel worked for women who wanted to protect themselves from STDs without having to use condoms. Moscicki had her participants use VivaGel as a vaginal cream for two weeks and found it caused "mild irritation and low-grade inflammation" in study participants.
Inflammation can make it easier for viruses to transmit, since the same white blood cells used to heal the inflammation can be used by the HIV virus to duplicate itself and spread. Inflammation can also break down the skin barrier, allowing HPV to reach the basal skin layer and infect a person .
But in an email to the Huffington Post, Jackie Fairley said the levels of VivaGel in condoms differed from the levels of VivaGel in the vaginal cream Moscicki used in her study. According to Fairley, Moscicki's vaginal cream contained 3 percent VivaGel, whereas the condoms contained .05 percent.
The VivaGel condom has been approved by the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration, which is similar to the FDA in the U.S., and is expected to hit the Australian market under the Lifestyles Dual Protect brand very soon.
The company also plans to bring the product to North American, Europe, and Asia.
