• A new clinic study in South Africa and Uganda has found that the drug lenacapavir provides a complete protection against HIV/AIDS infections.
• Participants only had to take two injections of the drug a year for 100 percent protection.
• The breakthrough presents hope for women in Africa looking for pre-infection protection, especially in combatting stigma.

Countries in Africa have been at the forefront of research on drugs that can prevent HIV/AIDS infections, as the disease has become emblematic of the struggles faced by developing nations since the early 2000s.

While recent advances in genetics have taken a bit closer to a complete cure for the notoriously hard-to-kill virus, the scientific community has instead shifted towards preventative measures with important progress.

This week, South African researchers part of a study between the country and Uganda have found that the new preventative drug lenacapavir, a pre-exposure medicine or (PrEP), can prevent 100 percent of HIV infections in young women after just two injections of the drug a year.

The South African-arm of the study was led by the University of Cape Town (UCT), where Physician-scientist Linda-Gail Bekker was principal investigator. During the study, 5 000 participants from 25 sites in South Africa took part to test the efficacy of lenacapavir and two other drugs.

It was used to test how effective in preventing infection lenacapavir was compared with daily PrEP drugs like Truvada F/TDF and Descovy F/TAF, which are both in pill form. It was a blind trial, with participants randomly selected for each of the drugs.

Women were the main participants because, as ScienceAlert describes, young African women are bearing the burden of most new infections of HIV/AIDS. While only 1.5 percent of the women who took Truvada contracted HIV and 1.8 percent taking Descovy contracted the virus, none who took the injected lenacapavir recorded infections.

The research posits that it isn’t that the pill-form drugs are not functional, but rather the daily regimen to take the PrEP pills is challenging. Young women may struggle to get appointments at nearby clinics, or they face stigma for protecting themselves against the virus.

However, with the new injection, just two clinic visits a year means full protection with no daily pill-taking regimens required. If the drug can be advanced enough to provide full protection after only one dose every year, it may be the closest we’ve ever gotten to an HIV vaccine.

There’s more good news in that Gilead Sciences, which funded the trial, will be offering the medicine to South African and Ugandan health regulators within the next couple of months, as per a statement from the company. Gilead also says that it will allow local firms to create generic versions in order to get prices down.

[Image – Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash]