Twice-yearly shots used to treat AIDS were 100% effective in preventing new infections in women, according to study results published Wednesday.
There were no infections in the young women and girls that got the shots in a study of about 5,000 in South Africa and Uganda, researchers reported. In a group given daily prevention pills, roughly 2% ended up catching HIV from infected sex partners.
“To see this level of protection is stunning,” said Salim Abdool Karim of the injections. He is director of an AIDS research center in Durban, South Africa, who was not part of the research.
The results in women were published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine and discussed at an AIDS conference in Munich. Gilead paid for the study and some of the researchers are company employees. Because of the surprisingly encouraging results, the study was stopped early and all participants were offered the shots, also known as lenacapavir.
Amazing. Hopefully this leads to eradicating HIV for good.
Yeah, I’m getting jaded as I get older. The optimist in me recognizes how ground breaking this is, and thinks there’s a real possibility of actually eradicating AIDS. The pessimist in me remembers covid.
If there’s profit to be made treating HIV/AIDS symptoms without curing, the profit motive health industry won’t like this. Solve the problem, their profits go away.
We can speculate very easily.
There’s a trade-off, cost-benefit analysys. If a disease is so catastrophic that it kills everyone fast, well you’re not gonna make profit off them ever, because they die. Cure this one.
What about diseases that can be controlled somewhat, and only affect small amounts of the population? What if for them to stay alive they have to stay on a regular concoction of expensive pharmaceuticals either forever or for a long time? And they can still go to work? Why cure this, out of altruism? That’s not how capitalism works.
Let’s just say, for shits and giggles, we could cure immediately the common cold and mild influenza, forever. No more cough and cold over the counter medicine needed, much less pain and fever reducers. Local pharmacies don’t need to stock this stuff anymore. The companies that produce and sell these are all tied to wallstreet. Getting colds doesn’t stop you from working (or buying/consuming). Shit, I work with “men” who are “tough” who never call out of work sick because “I’m not a pussy” (cultural hardwork ethic propaganda nonsense).
Etc., etc. You get my point.
Then some other company will do it. Not all world is US and A. Is some areas like Europe the states would be more than happy to order those vaccines to treat their citizens. There’s demand made by public health organizations, there will be someone willing to join the race and eat that cake.
Please make this affordable in the U.S.
I have a feeling it won’t be.
But then people might have sex without fear! That’s bound to make baby Jesus cry!
AIDS has been the most dangerous STD for decades. It has changed attitudes to sex worldwide. Having a vaccine is going to change them again.
Not to sell out my community but I know quite a few people whose condom use went down after they got on PrEP
Wonderful!
Republicans will work tirelessly to ban this in the U.S.
twice-yearly
I wonder why they went with that, instead of saying bi-annually
Is biannual twice yearly or every two years?
If you look it up, it’s both. IMO all these words are useless. Biweekly, bimonthly, etc.
Instead of biweekly I specify fortnightly. Is there a bimonthly equivalent? Fortweekly?
We should make it a thing. Let’s regroup in a fortweek and see how we’re getting on.
If you use the word fortnight, it’s likely you aren’t from North America.
Yes. A bicycle has two wheels, a semicircle is half a circle. Biannual is two years, semiannual is half a year.
English isn’t prescriptive, if enough people use it the wrong way then it becomes the right way.
It is clearer. What I learned at work is to write documents in high school language so that everyone can understand them.
