The present invention relates to an aqueous gel formulation and its method of preparation using combination of four or five medicinal plants for preventing sexually transmitted HIV-1. The gel formulation comprises 50% aqueous ethanolic extracts of medicinal plants namely Terminalia chebula, Phyllanthus emblica, Lagerstroemia speciosa, Acacia catechu and/or Aegle marmelos. The invention provides an herbal formulation useful as a vaginal/rectal microbicide gel. These herbal formulations showed potent in vitro anti-HIV-1 activity using reporter-gene based cell lines (TZM-bl) as well as human peripheral blood lymphocytes. These formulations also inhibited HIV-1 reverse transcriptase, integrase and protease activities suggesting that these may be working at multiple steps/stages of HIV life cycle and thus may be a valuable tool for alternative therapy.
