Table 3 Changes over time in the percentage of participants engaging in specific intravaginal practices and in laboratory parameters (vaginal flora, bacterial vaginosis, plasma, genital HIV RNA, IL-6, and IL-8). Plasma and CVL HIV RNA limit of detection was 20 copies/milliliter
Baseline (N = 128) N(%) Median(IQR) | 6-month (N = 90) N(%) Median(IQR) | 12-month (N = 118) N(%) Median(IQR) | Baseline vs. 6-month p-value | Baseline vs. 12-month p-value | 6-month vs. 12-month p-value | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Products used for intravaginal practices in the prior month | ||||||
Water | 91.7% | 37.7% | 47.2% | < 0.001 | < 0.001 | 0.112 |
Soap | 68.9% | 11.8% | 36.1% | < 0.001 | < 0.001 | 0.001 |
Cloth, sponge or a rag | 53.4% | 6.3% | 26.4% | < 0.001 | < 0.001 | 0.010 |
Traditional medicine | 28.5% | 3.8% | 30.6% | 0.001 | 0.731 | < 0.001 |
Herbs or flowers from outdoors | 18.1% | 5.0% | 8.8% | 0.026 | 0.070 | 0.363 |
Lemon | 9.9% | 2.2% | 13.7% | 0.050 | 0.034 | 0.016 |
Salt | 8.7% | 2.2% | 6.6% | 0.077 | 0.503 | 0.172 |
Vinegar | 2.3% | 2.2% | 11.8% | 0.962 | 0.017 | 0.029 |
Laboratory parameters | ||||||
Abnormal vaginal flora | 77.3% | 60.5% | 58.2% | 0.014 | 0.003 | 0.752 |
Bacterial vaginosis | 64.2% | 15.6% | 23.6% | < 0.001 | < 0.001 | 0.145 |
Detectable plasma HIV RNA | 20.8% | 14.9% | 20.7% | 0.147 | 0.995 | 0.374 |
Detectable CVL HIV RNA | 13.8% | 8.9% | 8.9% | 0.314 | 0.618 | 0.800 |
IL-6 (n = 68) | 289.9 (258.0) | 328.03 (264.8) | -- | 0.158 | -- | -- |
IL-8 (n = 68) | 332.5 (1781.9) | 311.4 (1400.3) | -- | 0.272 | -- | -- |