Twice-yearly Injections Cut HIV Infections by 100 Percent

From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.

A new study has found that the twice-yearly injections of a treatment for AIDS were 100 percent effective in preventing new HIV infections in women.

The U.S. drugmaker Gilead sells the drug treatment under the name Sunlenca. The drug is approved in the United States, Canada, Europe and in other places, but only as a treatment for HIV.

The researchers ended the study early because of the surprisingly good results. All the people in the study were then offered the injection, or shot, also known as lenacapavir.

Thandeka Nkosi helped run the Gilead research at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in Masiphumelele, South Africa. She said the idea of a twice-a-year shot is “quite revolutionary news.”

About 5,300 young women and girls in South Africa and Uganda took part in the study. Researchers reported that none of the women injected with the treatment became infected with HIV. Among those given daily prevention pills, about two percent became infected with HIV from infected sex partners.

Gilead said it is waiting for results of testing in men before seeking permission to use it as protection against HIV.

The New England Journal of Medicine published the results on July 24. Experts also discussed the study at an AIDS conference in Munich, Germany. Gilead paid for the study and some of the researchers are company employees.

There are other ways to prevent HIV infection. These include devices like condoms or drugs taken daily by mouth. However, regular use has been a problem in Africa. In the new study, only about 30 percent of people given Gilead’s Truvada or Descovy HIV prevention pills actually took them. That percentage also dropped over time.

Nkosi said the twice-yearly injections give people a choice. She added that injections took away the “stigma around taking pills” to prevent HIV.

High cost of the drug

As an HIV treatment, the drug costs more than $40,000 a year in the U.S. Health insurance companies pay part of the cost and patients pay the balance.

People working to stop the spread of AIDS are interested in the Sunlenca shots. But they are concerned that Gilead has not agreed on a lower price for those who need the shots the most.

“Gilead has a tool that could change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic,” said Winnie Byanyima. She is executive director of the Geneva-based UNAIDS.

She said the U.N. AIDS agency urged Gilead to share Sunlenca’s patent with a U.N. program. The program’s goal is to let generic drugmakers manufacture low-cost versions of drugs for poor countries.

Dr. Helen Bygrave of Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that the injections could “reverse the epidemic if it is made available in the countries with the highest rate of new infections.” She urged Gilead to publish a lower price for Sunlenca that all countries could pay.

In other research presented at the AIDS conference, Andrew Hill of the University of Liverpool and others said the drug’s price would go down. They estimated that once production of Sunlenca is expanded to treat 10 million people, the price would fall to about $40 per treatment.

He said it was important for health officials to get Sunlenca as soon as possible. “This is about as close as you can get to an HIV vaccine,” Hill said.

Gilead said it would seek a “voluntary licensing program.” It said a small number of generic producers would be permitted to make the drug.

In a statement last month, Gilead said it was too early to say how much Sunlenca would cost in poorer countries. Dr. Jared Baeten is a product development official with Gilead. He said the company was already talking to generic drugmakers and understood how “deeply important it is that we move at speed.”

Byanyima said many groups need long-lasting protection from HIV infection. They include women and girls who are victims of violence and homosexual men in countries where homosexuality is criminalized.

UNAIDS says that in 2022 46 percent of new HIV infections in the world were in women and girls. In Africa, females are three times more likely to get HIV than males, the U.N. group said.

Recently, UNAIDS released a report on the state of the HIV epidemic. It said that fewer people were infected with HIV in 2023 than at any time since the late 1980s.

The U.N. says HIV infects about 1.3 million people every year and kills more than 600,000, mainly in Africa. While much progress has been made in Africa, HIV infections are rising in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

And that’s the Health & Lifestyle report.

I’m Anna Matteo. And I’m Jill Robbins.

Maria Cheng and Gerald Imray reported this story for The Associated Press. Anna Matteo adapted it for VOA Learning English.­­­­­­­

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Words in This Story

stigma –n. something that people feel ashamed about

trajectory –n. the direction that something is going

epidemic –n. when an infectious disease spreads over a population in a wide area

patent –n. protection for the legal owner of a process or product against having intellectual property copies or stolen

generic –adj. not sold under a brand name; a manufactured product that is not protected by a patent

licensing –n. the legal process of permitting the production of a product protected by patent law by a company that does not own the patent

homosexual –adj. the state of being sexually interested in the same sex

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