This article is a year old but is just as relevant today as it was then. There are still no micobicides, natural or synthetic, that can protect women against HIV.
The [him] moderator respectfully disagrees with the family planning worker who says that trumpet flower root taken as a contraceptive is not harmful. Anything that is ineffective in stopping an unwanted pregnancy causes a woman harm.
Microbicides give hope to Burmese women
Violet & Ying Tzarm
Mizzima News
1 March 2005
There is a research underway to develop new products known as "microbicides" that would give women the power to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), including HIV/AIDS. This would be an enormously welcome development as the health and lives of women around the world, including women of Burma, are increasingly at risk from these diseases.
Microbicides come in various forms including gels, creams, films, lubricants, sponges and rings. Women can use them vaginally to protect themselves from contracting sexually transmitted diseases. However, this new technology is still being clinically tested. Nevertheless, with the leadership and global investment, access to a safe and effective microbicide could be a reality for women in developing countries by the end of this decade, said Dr Zeda Rosenberg, CEO of the International Partnership for Microbicides.
"Current prevention options are just not enough. For women worldwide, being young and married are the two most significant risk factors for contracting HIV - and microbicides are the prevention tool they desperately need," he said.
Women's susceptibility to HIV is exacerbated because females are biologically more vulnerable to infections and are often powerless to abstain from sex or to insist on condom use. Women now make up 60 percent of all HIV infections in Africa and rates of infection among women in other regions are growing rapidly.
"We must ensure (women) have full access to the practical options that can protect them from HIV- including microbicides - as they become available," said UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in his address to the 15th International AIDS conference's opening ceremony in Bangkok last year 2004. Some health officers from Burma also attended the conference.
The active ingredient in microbicides comes from a cheap, natural resource: seaweed. This raises interesting possibilities about the potential of natural or traditional medicines to fight HIV/AIDS - especially for poor countries like Burma where the epidemic is rising dramatically. Already some communities are using their traditional knowledge in this way.
Htee Kleah, a traditional chemist who lives in a refugee camp along the Thai-Burma border said, "I have given natural medicine produced by our study group to some people living with HIV/AIDS in the camp. The condition of these patients seems to be improving, especially two of them who are currently as healthy as normal people".
But Htee Kleah is careful not to exaggerate his success. He acknowledges that testing is at an early stage and that there is still no guaranteed cure for HIV/AIDS.
Aung Than Wia, an HIV/AIDS health counsellor in Dr Cynthia Maung's Mae Tao clinic, says that most patients believe traditional medicine can heal the disease. But he cautions that health workers must be very careful about using this kind of medicine because it usually contains too much salt which can be very harmful. He says he has seen a few Burmese people who have died from diarrhoea because of using such medicine.
He agrees that there is a lot of traditional knowledge about how to treat sexually transmitted diseases and prevent pregnancy. For example, old people in the Karen community use a herb called Paw Kah, "bitter flower" in Karen, which can only be found in tropical forests, to cure their children from sexually related infections.
For the Shan, jungle lime, known as "gold lime," is considered a particularly powerful contraceptive medicine. Harn Noon, a Shan HIV and family planning trainer, says she was told that when a person is going to use the roots of that tree they have to take off all their clothes. Then he or she has to ask permission from the spirit of the tree. They also have to perform this ceremony at a particular time: only on full moon and dark moon days.
Anyone who wants to prevent getting pregnant takes a shower with a mixture made from these roots. Boiled plumbago roots, called "Bit Bi Leang" in Shan, are sometimes drunk to prevent pregnancy. But this is not dangerous and doesn't harm people's health.
Some old Shan people also use the Indian trumpet flower as a contraceptive. They take the bark of the tree, pound it, mix it with limejuice and eat it. It is said to taste like pepper. Harn Noon says this mixture is also not harmful.
Medical researchers do not yet know if they can use traditional medicines like these to develop microbicides. Until they do, it is important to make sure that people understand the limitations of such medicines. Meanwhile, the dialogue between traditional healers and scientists continues.
Perhaps the next medical breakthrough will come from a tropical forest instead of a clinical laboratory. If so, women in countries like Burma will have a reason to celebrate.
