Updates on hiv3 Jan 2017 22:19
Last week, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases announced a global 4,500-patient clinical trial to test whether injections every eight weeks of an experimental HIV drug, cabotegravir, from U.K.-based ViiV Healthcare is effective in preventing HIV infection. Last month, the first efficacy study of an HIV vaccine in seven years was begun in South Africa.
This is “one of the most exciting years ever in HIV prevention,” said Mitchell Warren, executive director of AVAC, a global HIV advocacy organization supported by the Gates Foundation.
Progress is needed. Despite major gains against HIV and AIDS in the past two decades, 1.9 million people become infected with the virus each year, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS estimates. The majority are in resource-poor regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where the epidemic’s toll has been severe.