(Bloomberg Opinion) – A scientific feat in creating a historical success in HIV prevention – the Food and Drug Administration received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration last month. Gilid Sciences’ Lenakpavir is so effective that global health leaders started talking carefully about the end of an epidemic that continues to kill more than 600,000 people every year.
We should celebrate its arrival.
Instead, the most affected support group from HIV and the country Trump administration are getting away from tireless attacks on the global health infrastructure. Instead of completing plans for a rollout of the drug, they are hitting the feet to ensure that people suffering from HIV have drugs they need to survive.
Last year, I wrote about stunning-or as an HIV specialist described it, “Spine-Chilling”-The results of a large study of Lenakpavir. None of the annual injection women and teenagers in the trial were infected with HIV. In another study, who have sex with men, and involve transgender individuals, who have sex with men, treatment was 96% effective. Even better, Gillid is working on a new version that may potentially provide protection for a year or more.
It is close to an HIV vaccine that we are likely to receive – for at least several years. It is also the best shot in the world to achieve the goal of eliminating HIV by 2030.
For low and medium-or-I-oriented countries that continue to face disappointing stubborn infection rates, twice a twice-year-old drug may be a game-changer. Although the existing treatment of daily pills performs an excellent work in preventing infection, it is difficult for people to use continuously.
There is a stigma attached to the bullets. It is also challenging to keep patients with constant testing and refill – as they remember to take daily. Consider a mother’s specific day with a newborn and it is easy to understand how six months of security can create a real difference in reduced HIV cases in women and infants.
Some experts have also suggested that we have the best opportunity to eradicate new infections in Lenkapavir children.
Before the Trump administration suddenly shut down the USAID, the major agency behind Pepfar. The global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS is credited with saving the lives of an estimated 26 million people since its inception in 2003. Although the administration gave a limited exemption to allow some HIV services to continue, there is considerable restraint in funding.
As health workers struggle with fewer resources, their focus has shifted to people living with HIV. Linda-Gail Baker, director of the Desmund Tutu HIV Center at Cape Town University, says, “When the chips are down, you protect the treatment because they will die, if they do not find their antiretrovirals,” at the Cape Town University, the director of Desmond Tutu HIV Center at Cape Town University is called Linda-Gales Baker. And yet, he said, “Prevention we know that there is a complete cornerstone to bring this epidemic under control.”
Because the situation is so dynamic, it is difficult to catch what is happening on the ground. The best current model suggests that administration’s functions can result in at least 70,000 additional new infections, and 5,000 deaths in the next five years.
UCLA Infectious Disease Epidemician Dvora Joseph Davi says that in 2024, eight public health clinics in Cape Town-where it is based-saw three infants who were HIV positive at birth. In the first five months of this year, they have already seen three infants born with infection.
She knows that much more will happen. A pregnant woman with HIV recently came to the clinic and, in 37 weeks, her viral load was hard. She picked up her last three months’ supply of bullets. Davi said that the nurse she was looking at was allowed to go as part of the funding cut, and no one was available to draw blood in her last journey.
If in principle, people who are still benefiting with global help, falling through cracks, what do we expect for prevention?
Efforts for prevention in some countries have already been severely interrupted. Supply is responsible for some upheaval -rolling, but more complex problem is receiving drugs for those who need them most. “We require low cost products and also have a low -cost delivery mode,” Carmen Perez Cassus, Says Senior Strategy Lead in United, is a global health initiative organized by the World Health Organization. She says, “the latter situation” has changed fundamentally. ,
HIV prevention is not as simple as handing over just one recipe. It is earlier identifying those at the risk of infection, they have been tested to confirm that they are negative, and are offering counseling about their options. It is ensuring that they return to more testing and next dose of their drug. This requires a huge support network from doctors and nurses to counselors, pharmacists, lab technicians, data scientists and more.
Pepfar supported all that infrastructure. In South Africa, for example, the cuts have lost jobs for some 8,000 health workers focused on HIV.
Help groups are trying their best to ensure that the promise of success is not completely lost. Their first hurdle is reducing the gap for the arrival of low -cost generic lenkapavir, which is not expected for some time in 2027. (Gillid is allowing a handful of pharmaceutical companies to create and sell generic forms of Lakpavir in the most affected countries by hives.
Then they need to receive medicines for patients. Experts tell me that he has fulfilled his expectations in view of the upheaval with Peppar. The Trump administration has created additional obstacles at the end of national institutions of national health grants abroad. It has been particularly disastrous in South Africa, where NIH supported an important part of HIV -related research. This means that low money to study so -called implementation for Lenkapavir, which is important to understand how to improve the use of drugs in the real world. A simple thing is that the Trump administration can free money for prevention. Pepfar continues to work under a discount that allows pregnant or breastfeeding only for those who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
Groundbreaking science alone will not eliminate HIV. It should be combined with strength and access. Cuts cut for global health efforts of Trump administration put all the things at risk – including the promising future where HIV is brought into the heel.
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Lisa Jarvis is a bloomberg opinion columnist covering the health care and pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was the executive editor of Chemical and Engineering News.
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