HIV Breakthroughs, Twice A Year Injections Becoming Invaluable

HIV Breakthroughs, Twice A Year Injections Becoming Invaluable

We know that sex health drugs have made leaps and bounds. Not only has our community avoided an absolute death sentence when it comes to HIV and AIDS, but we are in the boom of Doxy and Prep. The medical industry continues to make advancements, and news this month is very promising.

A study with 5,000 South African and Ugandan women was completed, with the females taking a twice-yearly HIV prevention pill. 100% of these women experienced no AIDS/HIV contraction as compared to 2% of women contracting HIV from sexual partners using a daily prevention pill. This disparity could also be the result of not adhering to the daily pill, with 30% reporting that they had taken it as required. The shots, called lenacapavir, ended up being given to all study participants because of its effectiveness.

 

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This shot comes from the United States Gilead and is available here, in Canada, and in Europe. Testing needs to be completed with men before full use. Also, there's the financial matter at hand. Gilead says they are looking to license to only a few generic manufacturers. With this so groundbreaking and able to prevent a horrible disease, the UN is urging them to make it affordable, especially in highly affected, lower-income countries. Apretude is another HIV prevention shot in the industry and comes with a price tag of $180 per patient for a year of treatment. Africa has the highest number of HIV infections. Around the globe, about 1.3 million are affected every year. There are reported increases in HIV in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Even with advancements in treatment, according to UNAIDS, over 600,000 still die from AIDS-related causes per year.

 

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In other HIV treatment medical news, researchers will present new medical evidence at Germany's 2024 International AIDS Conference that indicates a seventh patient has been "cured" of HIV. A male patient received a stem cell transplant for acute myeloid leukemia and now shows no presence of the virus. The patient stopped taking antiretroviral medication for HIV back in 2018. While this seems like great news, it does not serve as a widespread HIV cure. Stem cell transplants can cause death, and these cases have been cured because the patients with HIV developed blood cancer.

Still, this all serves as movement in the right direction. With the highest infection rates in females at 53%, it is not merely a gay disease.

 

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