HIV prevention drug hailed as breakthrough, but who gets access?

A medicine injected just twice a year could transform the fight against HIV.In a 2024 clinical trial involving more than 2,000 young women in South Africa and Uganda, no participants who received lenacapavir contracted HIV.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4An AIDS-free generation is within reach, but not guaranteedlist 2 of 4US funding cuts deal blow to global HIV treatment: Reportlist 3 of 4In Senegal, a mother’s ordeal exposes a health system under strainlist 4 of 4It’s the ‘closest thing to an HIV vaccine’, but who gets access?end of listDeveloped by United States pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences, the injectable drug can be used to prevent HIV.“It’s the most innovative tool that has reached the HIV arena for the last decade, because it’s the closest we have [to] a vaccine,” Carlota Baptista da Silva, global HIV lead at Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials, MSF), told Al Jazeera.The World Health Organization has recommended the long-acting injectable as an additional form of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP – medicine to reduce the risk of getting HIV.But the arrival of the drug comes at a challenging juncture in the global fight against HIV.In...