Published
Unitaid will finance the introduction in these two countries of a long-acting injectable treatment. Initially, this program will affect the most exposed segments of the population.
In Brazil, the sections of the population most affected by the HIV virus are transgender people or men who have sex with men.
AFP
“The agency Unitaid announces today an agreement to begin the use in South Africa and Brazil of an injection which will protect users from HIV for eight weeks” (the virus responsible for AIDS, editor’s note). The announcement was made by a spokesperson for the organization, in Geneva, Hervé Verhoosel. He explained that this program will reach a very specific audience: “Adolescent girls and young women in South Africa, since they are today the first to be affected by HIV, and transgender people or men having sex sex with men in Brazil, who are also sections of the population very affected by HIV.”
Unitaid says this injectable version of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) – also called long-acting cabotegravir – is the latest innovation in HIV prevention. “The United States and England have just approved this system, but it is not yet available there,” added Hervé Verhoosel.
This treatment is 70 to 90% more effective than daily oral PrEP in reducing the risk of HIV infection and requires only six injections per year, according to the organization, which raises funds once morest the diseases. It also helps to alleviate fears that the pills might be confused with HIV treatment, which would put the person at risk of stigmatization.
A price adapted to the economy of the countries?
Unitaid, in partnership with Fiocruz in Brazil and Wits RHI in South Africa, as well as local health authorities in both countries, will integrate long-acting PrEP into national sexual health programs. The first doses were given by pharmaceutical companies, said Hervé Verhoosel. Unitaid calls on laboratories to apply for low and moderate income countries a price adapted to the economy and the needs of the country, and in the longer term to allow voluntary licenses to manufacture generics.
Today, one million people have access to PrEP worldwide, well below the target set by the United Nations. On July 16, 2012, a first preventive treatment called PrEP, the antiretroviral cocktail Truvada, was authorized in the United States. Since then, this type of treatment has proven its effectiveness and allowed people at risk to protect themselves by taking a tablet as a preventive measure.
(AFP)
