Despite decades of progress, HIV continues to pose a challenge to global public health as it continues to infect more than one million people a year.
LEN, an HIV-1 capsid inhibitor delivered by subcutaneous injection twice a year, was shown to be highly effective in preventing HIV among cisgender men, transgender men, transgender women, and gender non-binary individuals who have sex with partners assigned to males at birth.
The increasing optimism about combating HIV/AIDS followed after two groundbreaking clinical trial results for lenacapavir. The trials showed it to be capable of virtually eliminating new HIV infections through sex.
“A large efficacy trial in African adolescent girls and young women reported in June that these shots reduced HIV infections to zero—an astonishing 100% efficacy. Any doubts about the finding disappeared three months later when a similar trial, conducted across four continents, reported 99.9% efficacy in gender-diverse people who have sex with men,” the journal said.
Whether lenacapavir PrEP will become widely used and speed the end of the HIV/AIDS epidemic depends on access, delivery, and, of course, demand, it added.
