A new study has revealed that taking two shots of the drug currently used to treat HIV infection every year prevents human immunodeficiency virus among women.
According to CNN, the data published in the New England Journal of Medicine by the drugmaker Gilead suggested that taking twice-yearly injections of lenacapavir drug provides total protection against HIV and showed 100% efficiency in the Phase 3 trial data.
Linda-Gail Bekker, director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Center at the University of Cape Town and former President of the International AIDS Society, said in a press release, “These stellar results show that twice-yearly lenacapavir for PrEP, if approved, could offer a highly effective, tolerable, and discreet choice that could potentially improve PrEP uptake and persistence, helping us to reduce HIV in cisgender women globally.”
The study was conducted on more than 5,000 HIV-negative young women and adolescent girls in Africa. As per the results presented at the International AIDS Conference in Munich, none of the participants who received the twice-yearly injection were contacted with the virus during the course of the study.
