ABSTRACT
Acquired Immune deficiency Syndrome, the dreaded disease was discovered in 1981. The principal causative agent is human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that belongs to retrovirus group of viruses. The use of antiretroviral drugs in pregnant women with HIV infection and their infants is an extraordinarily successful prevention strategy. The rate of mother-to-child transmissions of HIV in the United States has been cut to negligible levels among women and infants treated with an extended regimen of zidovudine therapy. The complexity of the virus and the frequent mutations occurring in the genome has restricted designing of anti-HIV drugs and development of a novel vaccine that can completely eliminate virus population from the host. A major limiting factor associated with the use of anti-HIV drugs as monotherapy is toxicity and emergence of drug-resistant isolates. Microbicides are products that are designed for application at vaginal or rectal mucosae to inhibit or block early events in HIV infection and thereby prevent transmission of HIV.
