| Increasing access to this long-acting preventive medicine could be a game changer in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS. |
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is preparing to roll out long-acting cabotegravir (CAB-LA) for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in its projects in southern Africa. CAB-LA, given as an injection every two months, has been described as a potential game changer in the fight against HIV/AIDS and is one of the closest existing medical tools to an HIV vaccine.
After long negotiations with ViiV, the sole manufacturer of CAB-LA, MSF successfully secured a limited number of doses to be administered in its projects in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, and Eswatini later this year.
Though 1.3 million people worldwide were newly infected with HIV in 2023, ViiV distributed only enough CAB-LA for approximately 13,000 people in 2023. And almost 70 percent of these doses were sold in high-income countries. Medicines shouldn’t be a luxury.
Pharmaceutical companies like ViiV must make enough long-acting formulations available at affordable prices for low- and middle-income countries and support generic manufacturers to help boost the global supply of these lifesaving drugs.
Read more about the launch of CAB-LA >> |
