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Twice-Yearly HIV Shot Shows 100% Effectiveness in Women
- t-writescode 2y agoThis is incredibly exciting! The main method available for PrEP, in the United States, at least, is a daily pill. I think (I don't know) there is a monthly shot, too. Daily pills take a lot of time investment; monthly shots are better; but once every 6 months is awesome! Especially in circumstances where it might be difficult to guarantee a daily pill or even a monthly shot.
- heavyset_go 2y agoThere's a shot that lasts a couple months mentioned in the article.
- bobthepanda 2y agoThere is a generic daily pill (Truvada), a more expensive one (Descovy) and an every two months shot (Apretude.) Apretude has lower efficacy than Descovy or Truvada, but once you factor in human error in taking a daily pill regimen, it is more even. Human error is a significant factor since the current treatment protocols say if you’re not sure whether or not to take it, it is safer to skip than to accidentally double the dose.
- m3kw9 2y agoSeen these on commercial, I wish they stop with commercial for meds. Depressing asf, keep reminding me of my mortality while I’m trying to relax and enjoy a moment
- UltraSane 2y agoDo you mean you don't want to be reminded of the risk of STDs when about to engage is sex?
- m3kw9 2y agoI was talking about med ads in general, and yes I don’t need to be reminded humans can get stds from unprotected sex, nor I think that is a place for it
- IshKebab 2y agoDefinitely one of the weird things I noticed in America. Most countries do not have medical adverts, for obvious reasons.
- jcul 2y agoYeah was going to comment the same. Always really strange to see so many adverts for medication when I visit the US.
- cosmotic 2y agoThe data I've seen shows apretude is more effective, not less
- cosmotic 2y agoFirst party, but I assume there's a lot more rigor and regulation on this than normal first party claims: https://apretude.com/about-apretude/clinical-trials https://apretude.com/about-apretude/clinical-trials
- thaumasiotes 2y ago> Daily pills take a lot of time investment; monthly shots are better That is a matter of opinion. How much time do you think it takes to swallow a pill?
- t-writescode 2y agoYou need to be in the same place, at the same time, every day, and always have them with you, continually. You also need to keep them dry and at room temperature all the time, so no leaving them in your car. Here's another example of a pill that needs to be taken every day, at approximately the same time of day: https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birth-control-pill/how-effective-is-the-birth-control-pill https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/birth-... From this article on that pill, > But people aren’t perfect and it’s easy to forget or miss pills — so in reality the pill is about 93% effective. That means about 7 out of 100 pill users get pregnant each year. You mess up and you have HIV for life. It's better to have something that provides more stable protection :)
- 2Gkashmiri 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directly_observed_treatment,_short-course https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directly_observed_treatment,... This is already possible by DOTS. In India it did wonders
- rcxdude 2y agoIt's also quite expensive
- slashnode 2y agoDOTS is effective for TB because it’s a time-limited treatment (usually 4 months for drug susceptible strains of TB) and is only relevant for treating infected individuals DOTS wouldn’t be feasible for a prophylactic treatment like this as the number of participants would be huge and the treatment period is indefinite (ie: the patient’s lifespan)
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- gadders 2y ago[flagged]
- mort96 2y agoFrom USAID: > When used correctly and consistently, male condoms are estimated to be 90 percent effective in reducing HIV transmission. They work to a degree, but they're not perfect
- l5870uoo9y 2y agoThey are however effective in preventing transmission of many other STDs that PREP doesn't prevent (and that PREP perhaps indirectly contribute to increasing transmission of including antibiotic resistant STDs).
- mort96 2y agoYeah, my comment wasn't meant to be anti-condom
- l5870uoo9y 2y agoFair enough.
- t-writescode 2y agoIn some parts of the world, rape victims are a frequent recipient of HIV. I imagine their assailants don't feel obligated to wear a condom. Please recall the regions of the world where these shots are going to be the least expensive, etc, per the article.
- gadders 2y agoI think this is a great initiative for poor areas of the world like sub-Saharan Africa. In the first world there are other options available.
- quitit 2y agoThe problem is the cost, in Europe and the USA the treatment is over $40,000 USD per year, which isn't realistic for regular people.
- cyberlurker 2y agoIsn’t that the starting price? Insurance and countries can buy in bulk and bring it down. Then overtime doesn’t the price come down due to competition from generics?
- quitit 2y agoThe $40k price is the current price in the USA. Generics aren't possible in markets where the patent holder enforces their rights. The article is about how Gilead will allow certain poverty ridden countries to access the drug without the need to pay a licensing cost (i.e. they can receive a "generic").
- droningparrot 2y agoDrug plans often bring this down to $0-600/year out of pocket
- JumpCrisscross 2y agoIt's frankly nuts that we don't make preventative medicine for transmissable diseases free in the rich world. It's so obviously in the collective interest to reduce prevalence.
- mschuster91 2y agoThe problem is, as usual, payment. There have been many failed attempts at developing suppressive, curative and preventative medicine against HIV over the decades, and not all of that was funded by charities or government grants that don't expect repayment - especially not the later stage trials.
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- JeremyNT 2y agoAm I wrong in thinking this is a huge development? Maybe one of the most important stories for public health this decade? AIDS kills more people than malaria, and preventing malaria has long been viewed as one of the lowest hanging fruits in public health. Hoping for eradication is too much with the limited immunity duration, but if we can mass produce a vaccine - even if it has to be administered twice a year - this could save millions of lives over the course of a decade.
- Aardwolf 2y ago> and results published Wednesday show it worked nearly as well in men. So not as well? Is there a biological reason for this? Also, is it typical to do such studies on single genders rather than on a mix of humans?
- a_t48 2y agoReceptive PIV sex has 2% transmission rate, PIA is 20%. Cis men don't have a vagina, so...
- t-writescode 2y agoThere's also a chance that the countries they were able to / encouraged to test in are quite hostile to LGBTQ+ people
- saagarjha 2y agoThis is mentioned in the article.
- bobthepanda 2y agoTo further elaborate, the anal mucous membrane is thinner than that of the vagina, so it’s easier for HIV to transmit that way.
- perching_aix 2y agocould you undo the abbreviations please?
- dhaugshs 2y agoPenis in vagina. It's a specification. It's like "birthing parent", to be clear what hardware is being used. Given that HIV infection rates are very variable (over an order of magnitude, sometimes two) by subpopulation, clarifications detailing what hardware is doing what are very necessary.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- Animats 2y agoHere's a talk by someone from Gilead from a few years ago about how it works.[1] Back then they were still testing on animals. It's amazing that a small-molecule drug can be that effective for six months. It's not a vaccine. It doesn't stimulate the immune system. Completely different mechanism. It's not a slow-release implanted thing, either. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmjn_7TeFUA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hmjn_7TeFUA
- allenjhyang 2y agoReally cool. Is the mechanism already used for other diseases? Or is this a first-of-its-kind application that'll open the door to using the mechanism for others?
- lightedman 2y agoThat is what got me. How in the world does this drug have such a long life in the body? Can it bioaccumulate, and that's why it's only given every 6 months? If it can, are there effects that are not desirable?
- Wolfenstein98k 2y agoAmazing, but surely you don't need to keep getting the shot once you've got HIV.
- weatherlite 2y ago[flagged]
- from-nibly 2y agoI'm sorry no one got the joke.
- Wolfenstein98k 2y agoIt was worth the down votes.
- andrewstuart 2y agoThis is especially big news for those of us there in the 1980's when there was no treatment or vaccine at all, just a death sentence.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- skort 2y agoGreat news that it's so effective in women. Less great news is that availability to people who could use it the most is based on the whims of the drug maker.
- llm_trw 2y agoIt's amazing that we now have subscription medicine.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> amazing that we now have subscription medicine Now? You don't keep up on your immunisations? Ever seen an old person's medicine cabinet?
- t-writescode 2y agoAt least for now, PrEP is available on most/all drug plans for free or very, very cheap, in the United States https://www.goodrx.com/truvada https://www.goodrx.com/truvada. No idea what happens when the ACA is further harmed. And per the article, > Drugmaker Gilead said it will allow cheap, generic versions to be sold in 120 poor countries with high HIV rates — mostly in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. So, the places that need it most will be able to get it for cheap. This is about as positive of a result as can be with how the modern world is currently laid out. The people that need it the most in the countries that need it the most will likely be able to get it.
- razakel 2y ago>So, the places that need it most will be able to get it for cheap. It's still about a dollar a day, which is a lot of money for the most needy.
- bidenbidet 2y ago[dead]
- dinoqqq 2y agoHere's a link to the original research: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2411858 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2411858
- raylad 2y agoThis treatment does not in fact prevent HIV infection. It prevents infected cells from producing viable virus particles. Because of this, it seems very likely that if any patient being treated with this drug ever discontinued it, they could develop HIV quickly from cells that were already infected in their body that had been suppressed from producing virus particles but were no longer suppressed. I was not able to find, in a little searching, any study at all on whether cells infected during treatment survive or are somehow cleared by the immune system or undergo apoptosis. Without this information it seems highly irresponsible to claim that this is a method of preventing HIV infection.
- mike_hearn 2y agoThe problems are bigger than that. The trials don't attempt to show impact on AIDS itself. Biomarker studies like this have a long history of going wrong due to statistical or theory related problems.
- John23832 2y agoThat’s because aids, the subsequent syndrome derived from hiv infection, wasn’t the target of the study?
- roywiggins 2y agoHIV isn't a biomarker, it's the cause of AIDS. People without detectable HIV don't develop AIDS. People with HIV and on ARVs don't develop AIDS either, and any study that watched people contract HIV but didn't provide their participants with ARVs would be both unethical and pointless.
- mike_hearn 2y agoBy definition anything that isn't the actual disease is a biomarker proxy for it. What actually matters is disease. > People without detectable HIV don't develop AIDS. An AIDS diagnosis requires the presence of HIV so your statement is a tautology (not your fault). If we rephrase to what you meant, that people without detectable HIV don't develop AIDS or any identical set of symptoms, then actually they do but when it happens it goes by a different name (ICL, idiopathic CD4 T lymphocytopenia). ICL is what they call AIDS that appears in HIV negative people and is essentially ignored by the public health community, as it's not supposed to exist.
- indulona 2y ago[flagged]
- Symmetry 2y agoDuring Covid the process chemists working on this, including my wife, and the group working on Remdesivir were the only ones not working from home at the Gilead's Edmonton facility.
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- normalaccess 2y ago[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> no one promotes the simple tactic of not sleeping around Idiots constantly do. It's great at boosting the teen pregnancy rate [1]. [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3194801/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3194801/
- normalaccess 2y agoI didn't say Abstinence-Only Education... I said not sleeping around is 100% effective. And it is.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> not sleeping around is 100% effective Nope [1]. [1] https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/guidelines/perinatal/management-infants-arv-hiv-exposure-infection https://clinicalinfo.hiv.gov/en/guidelines/perinatal/managem...
- normalaccess 2y agoIf the mom didn't sleep around that would fix two problems then...
- AlotOfReading 2y agoBecause "abstinence education" approaches have repeatedly failed to effectively address these kinds of problems while also causing immense issues with stigmatization. People are going to have sex. Public health programs have to be focused on policies that work instead of moral grandstanding.
- normalaccess 2y agoI'm of the opinion stigmatization of unhealthy risky behavior is exactly what we need.
- alecco 2y ago[flagged]
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- MrGuts 2y agoHow does a shot that prevents HIV fit in with the current Republican project of killing women and exposing everyone else to unchecked disease? It seems we are working to cross purposes here.