4 ms·

This sounded very exciting, but 'long acting' in this case is 8 weeks which, feels quite a frequent interval to have a jab. I wonder whether to what extent the

This sounded very exciting, but 'long acting' in this case is 8 weeks which, feels quite a frequent interval to have a jab. I wonder whether to what extent the people struggling with daily oral pills will be able to manage goig for injections every two months. Still, every small bit of good news is good news.

dillondoyle 6y ago
Maybe bundle with Suboxone doctor visits or other harm reduction sites
vmception 6y ago
I mean that’s about the same interval that the sexually active population should be getting tested, which is a blood test, which is a jab. Thats a best practice which mitigates most issues around sex to begin with, so this wouldnt be an abnormal for treatment. I feel like insurance providers could and should reeducate adults on modern sex education, since most adults have a patchwork of outdated best practices based mostly on fear, alongside missing some vaccinations.
- smnrchrds 6y ago
  > I mean that’s about the same interval that the sexually active population should be getting tested Is that an official recommendation? I cannot find a source for this.
  - stevesimmons 6y ago
    The CDC recommendation for HIV tests is at least every 12 months, and every 3-6 months for gay men with casual partners. In the UK, the Terrence Higgins Trust, the AIDS charity, also recommends every 3-6 months for gay men with new or casual partners. If any people from the UK are reading this, free STD/HIV home test kits are widely available. In London, for instance, order them from https://www.shl.uk https://www.shl.uk. If you're a gay guy and you haven't been tested recently, go do it!
    - vmception 6y ago
      And sex workers in regulated and unregulated environments frequently go for two week tests. People that have sex for money can be cleaner than the general population. There is discretion for personal responsibility, if you are privileged enough to access routine testing then do it.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
Some clinic in some less developed country had issues with people not taking their antibiotics for STDs reliably and they had a high failure rate. They switched to using Zithromax -- which stays in the system about two weeks -- and sitting them down and giving them the entire dose in sitting while a nurse watched them swallow it. Their cure rate skyrocketed and incidence of STDs plummeted. Similarly, some study found that treating kids in school in less developed countries for common parasitic infections was the best way to improve school performance for students. Surprisingly, with treating all the children at the local school, they saw knock-on effects in the entire neighborhood served by the school. Not only did school attendance improve, so did work attendance for adults in the neighborhood. If you can improve compliance for even half the women, you can begin to contain what is an epidemic in some African countries. Some African countries have very high rates of HIV positive people. This has really huge societal implications where you see high numbers of orphans because both parents have died and children born HIV positive because their mother had it. It is tearing apart the fabric of society. So this may be a much more significant innovation for some parts of Africa than most people hanging on Hacker News would ever guess. HIV is crippling some parts of Africa and adding something that is more convenient and effective to the tool bag for addressing the problem could be a major watershed moment for fairly large swaths of the African continent. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-saharan-africa/overview https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-sah... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893541/ https://www.csis.org/analysis/worlds-largest-hiv-epidemic-crisis-hiv-south-africa https://www.csis.org/analysis/worlds-largest-hiv-epidemic-cr... https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/how-long-does-zithromax-stay-in-your-system-138738/ https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/how-long-does-zithroma...
est31 6y ago
IDK at least for me personally, an injection every two months sounds way more comfortable than having to carry those pills everywhere I go.
economusty 6y ago
Lacking the discipline to develop and follow a routine is a personal problem. This injection is great news for those who have established the ability to stick to a routine.
- viraptor 6y ago
  This is a problematic phrasing. It's a personal problem if you're dealing with something that affects only you. Once it impacts whole countries, it's a public policy issue how to minimise the impact of personal discipline around routines.

dillondoyle 6y ago

Maybe bundle with Suboxone doctor visits or other harm reduction sites

vmception 6y ago

I mean that’s about the same interval that the sexually active population should be getting tested, which is a blood test, which is a jab. Thats a best practice which mitigates most issues around sex to begin with, so this wouldnt be an abnormal for treatment. I feel like insurance providers could and should reeducate adults on modern sex education, since most adults have a patchwork of outdated best practices based mostly on fear, alongside missing some vaccinations.

smnrchrds 6y ago
> I mean that’s about the same interval that the sexually active population should be getting tested Is that an official recommendation? I cannot find a source for this.
- stevesimmons 6y ago
  The CDC recommendation for HIV tests is at least every 12 months, and every 3-6 months for gay men with casual partners. In the UK, the Terrence Higgins Trust, the AIDS charity, also recommends every 3-6 months for gay men with new or casual partners. If any people from the UK are reading this, free STD/HIV home test kits are widely available. In London, for instance, order them from https://www.shl.uk https://www.shl.uk. If you're a gay guy and you haven't been tested recently, go do it!
  - vmception 6y ago
    And sex workers in regulated and unregulated environments frequently go for two week tests. People that have sex for money can be cleaner than the general population. There is discretion for personal responsibility, if you are privileged enough to access routine testing then do it.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Some clinic in some less developed country had issues with people not taking their antibiotics for STDs reliably and they had a high failure rate. They switched to using Zithromax -- which stays in the system about two weeks -- and sitting them down and giving them the entire dose in sitting while a nurse watched them swallow it. Their cure rate skyrocketed and incidence of STDs plummeted. Similarly, some study found that treating kids in school in less developed countries for common parasitic infections was the best way to improve school performance for students. Surprisingly, with treating all the children at the local school, they saw knock-on effects in the entire neighborhood served by the school. Not only did school attendance improve, so did work attendance for adults in the neighborhood. If you can improve compliance for even half the women, you can begin to contain what is an epidemic in some African countries. Some African countries have very high rates of HIV positive people. This has really huge societal implications where you see high numbers of orphans because both parents have died and children born HIV positive because their mother had it. It is tearing apart the fabric of society. So this may be a much more significant innovation for some parts of Africa than most people hanging on Hacker News would ever guess. HIV is crippling some parts of Africa and adding something that is more convenient and effective to the tool bag for addressing the problem could be a major watershed moment for fairly large swaths of the African continent. https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-saharan-africa/overview https://www.avert.org/professionals/hiv-around-world/sub-sah... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893541/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4893541/ https://www.csis.org/analysis/worlds-largest-hiv-epidemic-crisis-hiv-south-africa https://www.csis.org/analysis/worlds-largest-hiv-epidemic-cr... https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/fact-sheet https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/how-long-does-zithromax-stay-in-your-system-138738/ https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/how-long-does-zithroma...

est31 6y ago

IDK at least for me personally, an injection every two months sounds way more comfortable than having to carry those pills everywhere I go.

economusty 6y ago

Lacking the discipline to develop and follow a routine is a personal problem. This injection is great news for those who have established the ability to stick to a routine.

viraptor 6y ago
This is a problematic phrasing. It's a personal problem if you're dealing with something that affects only you. Once it impacts whole countries, it's a public policy issue how to minimise the impact of personal discipline around routines.