South Africa is expected to begin piloting HIV prevention shots 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 if rolled out nationally. But to be cost-effective in SA, research suggests the price of the injection must fall to levels that drugmaker ViiV Healthcare says are unrealistic.
Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI) and the national health department are expected to begin rolling out the injections of the entiretroviral cabotegravir to young women to prevent HIV infection as part of a small Unitaid-funded project, spokesperson Thalia Bayle told Spotlight. This follows an initial announcement in March that Wits RHI had been selected as a partner in the project alongside the department.
Give every other month, the injection is the latest form of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to use antiretrovial medication to prevent HIV infection in HIV-negative people.
Unitaid said it expected the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority to approve the injection early next year, according to News24.
The injection which would cost over R390 000 per person for a course of treatment in the US, and would have to be priced at about R1800 in South Africa.
Catherine Hartley, ViiV Healthcare spokesperson, told Spotlight that manufacturing was more expensive and much harder than for generic oral PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis).
Oral PrEP in the form of a once-a-day tablet has been available in South Africa since 2016. Today, the pill is available at more than 2000 sites nationwide.
In June KwaZulu-Natal Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane expressed concern over the low use of PrEP.
She said less than 100 000 people in KZN were enrolled for the PrEP pill, which was highly effective at preventing HIV infection. The province currently has more than 2 million people infected.
Source: News24, IOL, Daily Maverick, image from Twitter: @ScottEMcQuade