A company headquartered in Johannesburg will start making flexible silicone rings to protect women from HIV. The move signals a strong vote of confidence in an African firm to supply the ring at adequate scale and affordable prices, and a crucial step to making the continent self-reliant, reports Catherine Tomlinson.
Last year Spotlight reported that pilot projects testing out a new HIV prevention injection and a vaginal ring in South Africa would start early in 2023. Yet, as delegates gathered for the SA AIDS Conference in Durban last week, those pilots hadn’t yet started. Alicestine October and Elri Voigt have the latest on the state of play with these critical projects.
A vaginal ring used to prevent HIV infection is safe to use during late pregnancy and while breastfeeding, according to findings presented at a major international HIV conference in Seattle in the United States. The news comes as South Africa prepares for a likely national rollout of the ring and as more research confirms the safety of an HIV prevention pill during pregnancy. It is estimated that offering these products to pregnant and breastfeeding women could avert up to 136 000 new infections in roughly the next decade. Laura Lopez Gonzalez reports.
The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority has authorised an injection containing the antiretroviral cabotegravir for use to prevent HIV infection, according to drugmaker ViiV Healthcare. Laura Lopez Gonzalez reports.
South Africa is expected to begin piloting the every-other-month HIV prevention shot early next year, according to the international medicine financing initiative Unitaid. New modelling shows that the injection could prevent as many as 52 000 new HIV infections in the next two decades. But to be cost-effective in South Africa, the research argues, the price of the injection must fall to levels drugmaker ViiV Healthcare says are unrealistic. Laura Lopez Gonzalez reports.
Elri Voigt summarises some of the latest developments on long-acting therapies for HIV presented at the 2022 International AIDS conference.
The world stands at an inflection point once more in the war against HIV. For those of us working in the field in South Africa, especially, it feels eerily like the battle that was fought 25 years ago, writes Dr Liesl Page-Shipp.
Juliet Houghton was recently appointed as the CEO of the Southern African HIV Clinician’s Society (SAHCS). As part of Spotlight’s Women in Health series, Bienne Huisman spoke to her about her life working in HIV, her new role at the SAHCS, the importance of being able to laugh, and the Shakespearian origins of her name.
There is no time to waste in planning the South African rollout of cabotegravir (CAB LA), the long-lasting antiretroviral injection approved for use in the United States in December 2021, say local health experts.
Findings of two large phase III clinical trials first presented in 2020 showed a new HIV prevention injection to be highly effective. Yet, experts expect that the injection will only reach clinics in late 2022 or early 2023. If the rhetoric about bringing the urgency of COVID-19 to HIV is to mean anything, these timelines should be made shorter.
An antiretroviral injection administered every two months has been shown to be highly effective in preventing people from getting HIV in two large trials. Catherine Tomlinson asks what needs to happen before these injections become available to people in South Africa.
One of the most vibrant areas of HIV research these days is the search for new, more convenient ways to use antiretroviral medicines (ARVs) to prevent HIV infection. Elri Voigt rounds up the HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) research presented at the recent International AIDS Society Conference, including a biodegradable antiretroviral implant.
