‘Stunning’ Results for Twice-Yearly 100% HIV Protection

‘Stunning’ Results for Twice-Yearly 100% HIV Protection
‘Stunning’ Results for Twice-Yearly 100% HIV Protection. Credit | Shutterstock

United States: A study found that twice-yearly shots to treat AIDS were 100% effective in preventing new infections in women. The study, which involved about 5,000 young women and girls, showed no new infections in those who received the shots.

In contrast, about 2% of those who took daily prevention pills caught HIV from infected partners. “To see this level of protection is stunning,” said Salim Abdool Karim, director of an AIDS research centre in Durban, South Africa.

Vaccine Development and Approval

As reported by AP news, these shots have been made by the U.S. drugmaker Gilead and sold as Sunlenca are approved in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere, but only as a treatment of HIV and the particular company said it is waiting for the results of the testing in the men before seeking the permission to use it to protect against infection.

These particular results have been published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and discussed at an AIDS conference in the Munich.

Gilead paid for the study and some of the researchers are company employees and just because of that surprisingly encouraging results the study was stopped early and all the participants were offered the shots which are also known as lenacapavir.

Though there are other ways as well to prevent HIV infection like the condoms or daily pills consistent use has been a problem and in the new study only about 30 percent of the participants given Gilead’s Truvada or Descovy prevention pills actually took them, and that figure dropped over time.

Impact and Implications

The prospect of a twice-a-year is literally quite a revolutionary news for our patients said Thandeka Nkosi who helped run the Gilead research at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in Msiphumelele in South Africa.

“Gilead has a tool that could change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. AIDS agency.

She said her organization urged Gilead to share Sunlenca’s patent with a U.N.-backed program that negotiates broad contracts allowing generic drugmakers to make very less expensive versions of the drugs for the very poor countries globally and as an HIV treatment, the drug costs more than $40,000 a year in the U.S., although what individuals pay varies.