United States – AIDS vaccines administered every six months prescribed for women were fully effective in halting new infections, the study outcome revealed on Wednesday.
Researchers observed no infections in the young women and girls who received the shots in both South Africa and Uganda among the 5,000 participants. Out of people who were provided with daily preventive pills, around two percent contracted HIV from their partners, as reported by Associated Press.
“It is stunning to see this level of protection,” remarked Salim Abdool Karim regarding the injections. He is the director of an AIDS research center in Durban, South Africa, who was not involved in the study.
Sunlenca Vaccine
The shots known as Sunlenca are produced by the American drugmaker Gilead and licensed in the USA, Canada, Europe, and other countries but are only used in the treatment of HIV. The company added that it is still conducting trial tests on men prior to applying for approval to use it as protection against infection.
Other forms of protection against HIV are condoms and taking daily pills, but their usage has not been consistent in Africa. In the new study, less than 30% of participants receiving Gilead’s Truvada or Descovy prevention pills used them — and this rate decreased over time.
The idea of taking a vaccine that can be administered twice a year is “revolutionary news for our patients,” said Thandeka Nkosi, who assisted in the Gilead trials at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in Masiphumelele, South Africa. “It gives participants a choice, and it just eliminates the whole stigma around taking pills” to prevent HIV.
HIV/AIDS professionals engaged in the prevention of transmission are thrilled with the Sunlenca shots; however, they are worried that Gilead has not yet set an ‘accessible’ price for the needy candidates. The company stated its intent to continue a “voluntary licensing program,” indicating that only a few generic manufacturers would be approved to produce them.
“Gilead has a tool that could radically alter the course of the HIV epidemic,” Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Geneva-based U. N. AIDS agency.
She said that her organization had contacted Gilead and called on it to release Sunlenca’s patent to a U.N.-funded program that oversees bulk sales of cheap antiretroviral drugs to the developing world. It is used in the treatment of HIV, and the price per year is more than USD 40,000 although it differs depending on what the individual needs to pay in the USA.
A Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman, Dr. Helen Bygrave, said in a statement that the injections could ‘turn the tide of the epidemic if it is made available in the countries with the highest rate of new infections. ’ She insisted Gilead must make public the price of Sunlenca that can be affordable for all countries.
Last month, Gilead said it was premature to know the price of Sunlenca for prevention in the needy countries. In an interview, Dr. Jared Baeten, Gilead’s senior vice president of clinical development, said that the company had been in discussion with the manufacturers of generics and realized how “highly significant it is that one has to act fast.”
Another HIV prevention shot called Apretude, which is administered every two months, is available in some countries, particularly in Africa. It is priced at around USD 180 per patient annually, which is still expensive for most developing nations.
Global Impact and Future Prospects
According to Byanyima, some of the people who require lasting protection are women and girls who are experiencing domestic violence and gay men in jurisdictions where homosexuality is prohibited. UNAIDS noted that 46% of new HIV infections in the world in 2022 were females and girls, who were more vulnerable to HIV in Africa than males.
Byanyima likened the news regarding Sunlenca to the revelation of AIDS drugs that helped change HIV from an assured fatal condition into a manageable disease. At the time, the South African President, Nelson Mandela, placed a temporary ban on patents to enable more people to access the drugs; this reduced the price from around USD 10,000 per patient per year to about USD 50.
Olwethu Kemele, a health worker at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, observed that the shots might increase the number of people testing for HIV prevention services and the rate of the virus’s spread. She told the magazine younger women put the pills away so they do not have to explain to boyfriends and relatives. “It makes it hard for the girls to continue,” she said.
Progress in the Fight
This week, UNAIDS published a report on the state of the global epidemic in 2023 and noted that preliminary data suggest that fewer people are getting infected with HIV than at any time since the late 1980s. In the world, HIV affects approximately 1. 3 million people annually and is responsible for the deaths of more than 600,000, especially in African regions. HIV infections are increasing in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, although good progress has been made in Africa.
In other research displayed at the AIDS conference, Andrew Hill of the University of Liverpool and his team said that once the production of Sunlenca is ramped up to 10 million people, it should be costing USD 40 per treatment. He stated there was immense pressure on health authorities to get Sunlenca into the country as soon as possible, as reported by Associated Press.
“This is about as close as you can get to an HIV vaccine,” he said.