y Gordon Bell

CAPE TOWN, Apr 25 (Reuters) Researchers are closing in on a breakthrough microbicide gel to help prevent HIV infection in women, scientists said, but a lack of funding by major pharmaceutical companies is hampering research.

''I think for many years the microbicides research field was a little bit tentative about making too much noise about the potential of this technology,'' Helen Rees, executive director of South Africa's Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit, yesterday said on the sidelines of an international conference in Cape Town.

''At this point the microbicides research field is feeling that there might well be the possibility of having an effective microbicide in the next few years,'' she told Reuters.

Microbicides cover a range of vaginal and rectal creams, gels or suppositories that kill microbes and aim to cut the transmission of HIV and possibly other sexually transmitted diseases when applied before sex.

If proven successful, they could provide a powerful prevention tool for AIDS and one that, unlike condoms, can be directly controlled by women.

Five potential microbicide products are in advanced clinical trials and scientists say the first results should be made public within two years.

Rees, a co-chair of the Cape Town conference, said the trials and other new products, many of them being tested in South Africa -- the country hardest hit by AIDS -- offered exciting prospects for a scientific breakthrough.

''There are a lot of new products coming through the pipeline, new molecules and exciting new potential products that look, in the laboratory and in animal models, as if they will probably be even more effective against HIV,'' she said.

''What we will see as the months and years go by are some of these products being formulated and moving rapidly into the clinical trial phases.'' DISEASE OF THE POOR Some delegates complained about a lack of interest shown by major pharmaceutical companies in funding research, possibly due to smaller markets for the products in rich countries.

''There is global consensus that there has been a slow uptake in terms of funding microbicides research,'' said World Health Organisation Assistant Director-General Joy Phumaphi.

''We continue to be concerned about this ... we would like to see the pharmaceutical industry more involved,'' she said.

Developing countries, and particularly sub-Saharan Africa have been hardest hit by AIDS, and most of the new HIV infections worldwide continue to be amongst the poor.

But researchers say many of the products being tested could be highly effective in treating diseases such as herpes and chlamydia, both major problems in the developed world.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, South Africa's health minister, told delegates medical officials should guard against unethical practices in trials conducted mostly in poor communities.

Many participants in trials were not fully aware of the risks and, desperately poor, were lured by money to take part, she said.

REUTERS SI KN1002