More than 33 million people are living with HIV and new cases are diagnosed every year.

Condoms can prevent HIV, but with the disease spreading every day doctors know it is not enough.

Now, researchers are testing a new option, and this time women are in control.

As a single woman and the executive director of a large non-profit, Aisha Holmes is used to calling the shots.

"I think I'm a do what I want to do, when I want to do it kind of person. I'm single. I like to hang out with my friends and take advantage of everything life has to offer around the city for myself,” says Holmes, a participant in the study.

Soon, this gel could be the key to a new kind of control for Holmes and millions of other women.

It is designed to work like a chemical condom to block HIV.

"I think we can look at it as an alternative to condoms, as a mechanism to prevent sexual transmission and the benefits of this is that it could be something that is controlled by women, possibly even where their male partner will not even know they're using it,” says Dr. Craig Hoesley, an infectious disease physician.

The colorless, odorless gel contains tenofovir, a drug approved by the FDA to treat patients with active HIV.

In a recent phase two trial, Holmes and 200 other healthy women used the gel daily or before sex.

"No more women asking your partner if he was comfortable wearing a condom or the awkwardness of figuring out how to phrase it and ask. If you use the gel, you're in complete control of it,” says Holmes.

Preliminary studies found the gel is safe and easy to use. The next large scale study will show how effective it is in preventing HIV.

"I think it could be important worldwide, in the United States, but also in some parts of the world where women maybe are less empowered to ask their male sex partner to use a condom,” explains Dr. Hoesley.

Holmes says for herself and women everywhere, the more options, the better. “It definitely represents choice and independence for women."

Researchers are about to begin the next phase of their HIV gel trials, which is a much larger study involving hundreds of women in Africa and other countries.

The gel cannot prevent pregnancy, but they eventually hope to test its effectiveness in blocking other STDs besides HIV.