Inactivation of Microbial Infectiousness By Silver Nanoparticles-Coated Condom: A New Approach to Inhibit HIV- and HSV-Transmitted Infection
In this remarkable study published in the International Journal of Nanomedicine in 2012, the study authors found that coating condoms with silver nanoparticles helped inhibit the infectivity of both HIV (i.e., Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and HSV (i.e., Herpes simplex virus), as well as bacterial and fungal microbes.
The study authors stated, in part, “Recent research suggests that today’s condoms are only 85% effective in preventing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and other sexually transmitted diseases. In response, there has been a push to develop more effective ways of decreasing the spread of the disease. The new nanotechnology-based condom holds the promise of being more potent than the first-generation products. The preliminary goal of this study was to develop a silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs)-coated polyurethane condom (PUC) and to investigate its antimicrobial potential including the inactivation of HIV and herpes simplex virus (HSV) infectiousness… No significant toxic effects was observed when human HeLa cells, 293T and C8166 T cells were contacted to Ag-NPs-coated PUC for three hours. Interestingly, our results demonstrated that the contact of the Ag-NPs-coated PUC with HIV-1 and HSV-1/2 was able to efficiently inactivate their infectiousness… Furthermore, we also showed that the Ag-NPs-coated PUC was able to inhibit the growth of bacteria and fungi. These results demonstrated that the Ag-NPs-coated PUC is able to directly inactivate the microbe’s infectious ability and provides another defense line against these sexually transmitted microbial infections.”
