HIV prevention may only require two injections per year

There were nary caller infections among nan much than 2,100 women and girls who received twice-yearly lenacapavir, researchers from nan pharmaceutical institution Gilead Sciences study online July 24 successful nan New England Journal of Medicine. There were 16 caller infections among nan adjacent to 1,100 taking nan regular PrEP pill Truvada, nan first-ever PrEP option, which became disposable successful 2012. The proceedings results were besides presented July 24 astatine nan 2024 International AIDS Conference successful Munich.

Young women and teen girls from sub-Saharan Africa are among nan groups astatine precocious consequence for HIV infection. Of nan 4,000 young women and teen girls ages 15 to 24 who became infected pinch HIV globally each week successful 2023, connected average, astir 75 percent were from sub-Saharan Africa, according to The Joint United Nations Programme connected HIV/AIDS.

Studies person recovered that young women and teens are unfastened to PrEP but that location are barriers to utilizing nan preventive medicine. The stigma surrounding HIV casts a protector connected PrEP. Some women fearfulness that successful taking nan narcotics others will presume they are HIV positive (SN: 12/1/20). And nan regular pill regimen tin beryllium difficult to continue.

“PrEP use, particularly ongoing and accordant use, is challenged by HIV-related stigma from partners, peers and community, constricted knowing aliases acceptance of one’s ain consequence and imperfect supplier knowledge and communication,” says Amrita Rao, an epidemiologist astatine nan Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who was not progressive successful nan caller study. The twice-yearly changeable whitethorn make it easier to support protection, she says.

In 2021, nan U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an every-other-month injectable PrEP, a changeable of nan antiviral supplier cabotegravir. But nan prohibitive costs has truthful acold kept it disconnected nan array for low- and middle-income countries. This year, nan U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief supplied nan cabotegravir PrEP changeable to Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The twice-yearly injection whitethorn mean easier adherence and less session visits, Rao says, but nan trade-off whitethorn beryllium reduced testing and counseling opportunities for patients. “Having an further prime and nan expertise to prime nan method that is champion for you, however, is simply a invited advance.”

But “a recurring taxable of PrEP rollout has been agelong delays betwixt supplier support and real-world transportation to those pinch nan top need,” Rao says. Without thought fixed to nan implementation of nan twice-yearly shot, “even this incredibly promising instrumentality whitethorn not recognize its afloat benefit.”