Today is World AIDS day, and the fight continues.

MPTs (muli-purpose technologies) are women controlled interventions that prevent prgnancy, HIV, and other STIs at the same time. Condoms are the best known MPT.

The problem with condoms is that it can be difficult for women to intiate, insist on, or control condom use. There is a pressing world-wide need for alternatives to the condom that prevent both pregnancy and STIs (including HIV) and that women can control. People working in the fields of public health, reproductive health, technology, and pharmacology are are starting to collaborate on potential future MPTs. Ideas include rings, barriers, gels, tablets, films, & injectables.

In the fight against HIV we need more than abstinence and condoms. We need to go beyond the condom and put sexual and reproductive health in women's hands.