VOICE trial

One of the largest trials of HIV drug-based prevention methods fails to prove the effectiveness of either oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) or of a tenofovir-containing vaginal microbicide gel.

Drug levels assessed randomly throughout the trial show that only 25-30% of women actually use the study product, despite 88% claiming to. One major hurdle emerges after the end of the trial: participants were afraid of being seen to have HIV drugs and assumed to have HIV.