This is a rather interesting article regarding a couple recent studies done in Africa, on a couple medications designed to prevent the spread of HIV. I think this is encouraging stuff. Not that we all want to take pills to avoid HIV (smart sex is still the best way to do that), but it gives some hope that scientists are getting better at understanding the disease. That’s good news for everyone.

For some reason, Yahoo felt the need to specify “straight men and women” in the title of their article, even though the first successful study on this drug was done on gay men.

From Yahoo! News: Two new studies found that daily pills prevented infection with the AIDS virus in heterosexual men and women in Africa, bringing new hope for someday offering a medical shield against HIV infection.

“This is good news. This is a good day for HIV prevention,” said Dr. Lynn Paxton of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has coordinated the agency’s research into HIV prevention.

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These are the third and fourth widely reported studies of AIDS prevention medications.

The first was announced last year. It was a study of Truvada in gay men in Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, Thailand and the United States (San Francisco and Boston). The drug lowered the chances of infection by 44 percent, and by 73 percent or more among men who took their pills most faithfully.