Latest / Best of: Features / Promising new HIV-prevention drug is hard to find where it's most needed, in places like Uganda

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Promising new HIV-prevention drug is hard to find where it's most needed, in places like Uganda · Best of: Features

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  Promising new HIV prevention drug is hard to find where it's most
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  needed in places like Uganda. This article is being read by an
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  automated voice generated by Everlet. Mimbarara, Uganda the AP. In
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  the red light district in Mbarara, a city in western Uganda known
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  in part for sex tourism, a sex worker named Lisa Matoni insists
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  on using condoms when men enter her room to protect her against
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  HIV and other infections. The problem. Some try to remove or tear
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  the condom while having sex. She takes HIV prevention medication called PrEP
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  or pre exposure prophylaxis, which can come in the form of daily
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  pills or periodic injections. But there's a new option for her and
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  millions like her, if they would only get it. It's a drug
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  called Lenicapavir that studies have shown can offer nearly complete protection from
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  HIV with just two shots a year. Matoni said access to Lenikapavir
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  would benefit sex workers who sometimes shift elsewhere for months at a
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  time. If you know that you have that injection for six months,
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  you feel like you are safe, she said. And then it is
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  very good, nice, because sometimes you can also forget if it is
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  the pill, you can forget to swallow. Promise and frustration with Lena
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  Coppavier. But Mutoni says every time she tries to get what is
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  commonly referred to as Lena, it's not available. They tell me that
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  it is finished, she said. Such is the promise and the frustration
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  with Lenicopavir, a drug developed by Gilead Sciences. Other prep options, including
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  pills and an every other month shot of the drug Cabotogravir, are
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  very effective and widely available. But health experts say Lenicopavir has The
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  power not just to protect individuals but potentially even turn the tide
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  of the HIV epidemic globally because of its long lasting effects. But
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  there are not nearly enough doses in this East African country or
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  the rest of the world. The rate of growth of Lenicapavir rollout
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  isn't fast enough. We need to be getting to the millions pretty
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  soon, said Andrew Hill, an expert in HIV treatment who is a
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  senior visiting research fellow at the University of Liverpool in North West
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  England. FD approves a generic version. That may start to change in
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  The coming months. The
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  US Food and Drug Administration has just tentatively approved a generic version
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  of Lenikopavir that could help speed the production and distribution of the
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  drug to one hundred and twenty low income countries at a price
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  of roughly forty dollars a year, far below the US list price
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  of twenty eight thousand two hundred eighteen dollars. The approval was announced
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  Monday. The hope, according to the Global Fund, is to get it
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  to three million people by the end of twenty twenty eight. Some,
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  including Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, say this
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  isn't nearly enough. The group is calling on Gilead to make cheap
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  doses available to more countries and to sell it directly to MSF
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  so it can help protect more people faster. Gilead says it wants
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  to end the HIV epidemic for everyone everywhere, but its actions say
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  otherwise, said Melissa Barber, MSF USA Global Health Advocacy and Policy Advisor
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  in a recent statement. For now, people in Umberara, where an estimated
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  ten percent of the adult population has HIV double the rate of
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  Uganda as a whole, have to settle for inferior choices. Demand is
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  high and doses aren't enough. Julius Bampe, a polygamous man, was alarmed
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  earlier this year when testing confirmed his younger wife had HIV. She
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  was immediately given drugs to suppress her infection, while Bampay sought Lenikopivir.
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  But when Bampe, an itinerant builder, went to get his injection, he
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  found that there were no doses left. When I got here they
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  said that is what they would have given me, but they said
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  they didn't have enough doses for everyone, he said. The facility that
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  Bampi goes to received forty Lenacapavir doses in April, with instructions to
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  focus only on pregnant mothers at risk of acquiring HIV. The guidelines
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  were later changed to include couples like Bampi and his wife, sex
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  workers, and others. That batch was quickly administered and another seventy doses
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  sent in June were used up within ten days, said Tarsicio Berea,
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  a nursing officer working as a counselor at Emberara Health Center IV.
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  Uganda has slashed its HIV rate over the past three decades, and
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  it's far below that of some southern African countries. But like in
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  many nations, health authorities in Uganda say infections are driven largely by
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  transactional sexual encounters like those in Mumbarara and the type of transmission
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  that Lenacapavir would be so effective at stopping. Mutoni, the sex worker
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  in Mambarara, gets counseling and other support, including condoms, from Immaculate Namuija,
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  founder of a Mambarara based organization known as Action for Improved health
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  and Wealth. Namuija offers HIV support services to women who would face
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  discrimination elsewhere. It is a challenge, because the demand is high and
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  the doses are few, she said. Who would not wish to take
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  Linakapavir for six months? Who would wish to be on drugs every
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  day? Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, and Laura Ungar in
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  Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report, for more on Africa and development.
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  The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage
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  in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for
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  all content. Find the AP's Standards for Working with Philanthropies, a list
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  of supporters and funded coverage areas at the AP dot org.