HIV: Breakthrough study raises hopes of effective prevention if drug’s cost can be lowered

Landmark results in an African trial of HIV prevention through twice yearly injection could finally break the cycle of mass infection in sub-Saharan Africa, leaders of the United Nations’ HIV/AIDS programme (UNAIDS) have said. But they warned that this could occur only if the prices currently foreseen for such treatments in the west are lowered by hundreds of times.“The cost of the new long-acting injectable pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) options, and the speed with which they are made available to the people who would benefit the most, will be decisive,” said this year’s report from UNAIDS.1The potential of one such injectable antiretroviral, lenacapavir, has been highlighted by the results of its first trial as a preventive treatment, among adolescent girls and young women in South Africa and Uganda.2 Participants were randomly assigned to receive either lenacapavir by injection every six months or one of two common oral antiretroviral preventive treatments: F/TAF…
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