[00:00.00]From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.
[00:06.35]A new study has found that the twice-yearly injections of a treatment for AIDS were 100 percent effective in preventing new HIV infections in women.
[00:23.63]The U.S. drugmaker Gilead sells the drug treatment under the name Sunlenca.
[00:32.19]The drug is approved in the United States, Canada, Europe and in other places, but only as a treatment for HIV.
[00:45.14]The researchers ended the study early because of the surprisingly good results.
[00:52.60]All the people in the study were then offered the injection, or shot, also known as lenacapavir.
[01:03.00]Thandeka Nkosi helped run the Gilead research at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in Masiphumelele, South Africa.
[01:15.92]She said the idea of a twice-a-year shot is "quite revolutionary news."
[01:24.90]About 5,300 young women and girls in South Africa and Uganda took part in the study.
[01:34.94]Researchers reported that none of the women injected with the treatment became infected with HIV.
[01:43.43]Among those given daily prevention pills, about two percent became infected with HIV from infected sex partners.
[01:54.16]Gilead said it is waiting for results of testing in men before seeking permission to use it as protection against HIV.
[02:03.65]The New England Journal of Medicine published the results on July 24.
[02:09.05]Experts also discussed the study at an AIDS conference in Munich, Germany.
[02:16.12]Gilead paid for the study and some of the researchers are company employees.
[02:21.87]There are other ways to prevent HIV infection.
[02:26.30]These include devices like condoms or drugs taken daily by mouth.
[02:31.73]However, regular use has been a problem in Africa.
[02:36.31]In the new study, only about 30 percent of people given Gilead's Truvada or Descovy HIV prevention pills actually took them.
[02:48.44]That percentage also dropped over time.
[02:52.00]Nkosi said the twice-yearly injections give people a choice.
[03:00.26]She added that injections took away the "stigma around taking pills" to prevent HIV.
[03:09.67]As an HIV treatment, the drug costs more than $40,000 a year in the U.S. Health insurance companies pay part of the cost and patients pay the balance.
[03:27.87]People working to stop the spread of AIDS are interested in the Sunlenca shots.
[03:35.10]But they are concerned that Gilead has not agreed on a lower price for those who need the shots the most.
[03:46.42]"Gilead has a tool that could change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic," said Winnie Byanyima.
[03:57.26]She is executive director of the Geneva-based UNAIDS.
[04:05.52]She said the U.N. AIDS agency urged Gilead to share Sunlenca's patent with a U.N. program.
[04:15.43]The program's goal is to let generic drugmakers manufacture low-cost versions of drugs for poor countries.
[04:27.30]Dr. Helen Bygrave of Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that the injections could "reverse the epidemic if it is made available in the countries with the highest rate of new infections."
[04:42.11]She urged Gilead to publish a lower price for Sunlenca that all countries could pay.
[04:50.27]In other research presented at the AIDS conference, Andrew Hill of the University of Liverpool and others said the drug's price would go down.
[05:02.31]They estimated that once production of Sunlenca is expanded to treat 10 million people, the price would fall to about $40 per treatment.
[05:13.06]He said it was important for health officials to get Sunlenca as soon as possible.
[05:20.22]"This is about as close as you can get to an HIV vaccine," Hill said.
[05:26.21]Gilead said it would seek a "voluntary licensing program."
[05:31.66]It said a small number of generic producers would be permitted to make the drug.
[05:38.35]In a statement last month, Gilead said it was too early to say how much Sunlenca would cost in poorer countries.
[05:49.52]Dr. Jared Baeten is a product development official with Gilead.
[05:57.29]He said the company was already talking to generic drugmakers and understood how "deeply important it is that we move at speed."
[06:10.30]Byanyima said many groups need long-lasting protection from HIV infection.
[06:19.81]They include women and girls who are victims of violence and homosexual men in countries where homosexuality is criminalized.
[06:35.08]UNAIDS says that in 2022 46 percent of new HIV infections in the world were in women and girls.
[06:45.71]In Africa, females are three times more likely to get HIV than males, the U.N. group said.
[06:54.53]Recently, UNAIDS released a report on the state of the HIV epidemic.
[07:01.06]It said that fewer people were infected with HIV in 2023 than at any time since the late 1980s.
[07:10.37]The U.N. says HIV infects about 1.3 million people every year and kills more than 600,000, mainly in Africa.
[07:25.36]While much progress has been made in Africa, HIV infections are rising in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
[07:39.87]And that's the Health & Lifestyle report.
[07:43.81]I'm Anna Matteo. And I'm Jill Robbins.
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Words in This Story
stigma -n. something that people feel ashamed about
trajectory -n. the direction that something is going
epidemic -n. when an infectious disease spreads over a population in a wide area
patent -n. protection for the legal owner of a process or product against having intellectual property copies or stolen
generic -adj. not sold under a brand name; a manufactured product that is not protected by a patent
licensing -n. the legal process of permitting the production of a product protected by patent law by a company that does not own the patent
homosexual -adj. the state of being sexually interested in the same sex
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