Long-Acting Injectable for HIV Prevention Passes Hurdles, but Barriers Remain
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Professor Raphael Landovitz presenting to CROI 2021.
A detailed analysis of results from the HPTN 083 PrEP study, which compared the efficacy of a two-monthly injection of the drug cabotegravir against daily oral tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) pills, confirmed that there were only a third as many HIV infections in people given the injections as in people taking the pills.
Professor Raphael Landovitz told the virtual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2021) that final analysis of the 4566-person study showed that there were 39 HIV infections in participants given TDF/FTC versus 12 in participants given the cabotegravir injections (plus a lead-in period of four weeks taking cabotegravir pills, to rule out toxicity). This presented an annual incidence of 1.22% in the TDF/FTC arm and 0.37% in the cabotegravir arm.
The new leader of the nation’s coronavirus fight has been battling diseases her whole career Laura Krantz © Kate Flock/MGH Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
The unit where Dr. Rochelle Walensky performed her residency, during the peak of the AIDS epidemic in Baltimore, held a standing memorial service every two weeks because so many of its patients were dying.
It was a grueling start to a medical career, when young trainees worked 100-hour weeks at Johns Hopkins Hospital, holding the hands of people succumbing to a virus for which there was not yet any treatment.
“In 1995 we told patients with AIDS they would, with certainty, die,” Walensky said in 2019 testimony before Congress. Since those early days, the physician has had a meteoric rise at Massachusetts General Hospital, including being appointed just the third chief and the first woman to lead the Division of Infectious Diseases since its inception in 1956.
Expanding the range of options to prevent HIV is key
By Shobha Shukla || Citizen News Service CNS LISTEN
FEB 3, 2021
While the currently available HIV prevention and treatment tools have helped reduce new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths by 23% and 39% respectively since 2010, we still have a long way to go before ending this epidemic. With 1.7 million new HIV infections and 690,000 AIDS-related deaths in 2019, one cannot but overemphasize the urgent need to have more HIV prevention options, including long-acting HIV prevention strategies that might prove to be more acceptable and user friendly to people from diverse communities.
Topping the list is the much-awaited long-acting dapivirine vaginal ring that has finally seen the light of the day and is under regulatory approval processes of several countries. This long-acting female-oriented HIV prevention option is designed to be used by women discreetly. It is a silicon ring impregnated with dapivirine which a woman c
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