With only two contraceptive solutions which rely directly on men, India says it is set to launch the world’s first male birth control injection soon.

At the moment, men can either wear a condom or undergo a sterilizing surgery called a vasectomy to cut or seal the two tubes which carry sperm to the penis. A male birth control pill and a contraceptive gel are still in the works.

Invented by Sujoy Guha, a maverick 78-year-old Delhi-based biomedical engineer, the drug is a single preloaded syringe shot into the tubes carrying sperm from the testicle to the penis, under local anaesthesia.

Dr. Guha and his team of other researchers claim the non-hormonal, long-acting contraceptive will be effective for 13 years.

The drug called Risug, an acronym for Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance is a viscous gel which inactivates the sperm.

The effectiveness of a second part of the treatment, an injection which dissolves the gel with the hope of  reversing the effects and allowing a man to father a child later on has not been tested in humans  although it has worked in animal studies.

Liike other non-barrier methods, the contraceptive injection would not be able to protect against sexually-transmitted infections.

“This will be a world class contraceptive for men. It is safe and effective and lasts for long. We expect it will be cleared for production in the very near future,” RS Sharma, a reproductive biologist at the Delhi-based Indian Council of Medical Research and the drug’s lead researcher said.

Some scientists however assert that Risug is really a replacement for surgical vasectomies, an argument which the Indian researchers do not entirely deny.

“The contraceptive aspect of the drug still needs to be assessed with expanded reversibility studies. Currently it appears more like a sterilization approach.

“The reversibility needed to allow the drug to become a contraceptive needs to be established,” Michael Skinner, a reproductive biologist at Washington State University said.

Reacting, Dr Guha agreed, saying: “We are not going to claim reversibility presently, although I am confident that we will be there after human trials. For the moment, the drug will be positioned as an improvement on vasectomy. It will cause less trauma to men, and there will be no surgical incision.”

Earlier this year, Dr. Sharma published the results of the clinical trials of the drug, with 139 married men under the age of 41 and having at least two children given a single shot of the injection and monitored for six months.

The wives of 133 of the men did not get pregnant after unprotected sex. The drug’s failure to work for six of the men was however blamed on ‘leakage’ from the syringe or the sperm-carrying tubes suffering punctures.