{"id":665569,"date":"2026-11-03T11:46:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T11:46:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/665569\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T11:46:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T11:46:12","slug":"promising-new-hiv-prevention-drug-is-hard-to-find-where-its-most-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/665569\/","title":{"rendered":"Promising new HIV-prevention drug is hard to find where it’s most needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

MBARARA, Uganda — In the red light district in Mbarara, a city in western Uganda known in part for sex tourism, a sex worker named Lisa Mutoni insists on using condoms when men enter her room, to protect her against HIV<\/a> and other infections. The problem: Some try to remove or tear the condom while having sex.<\/p>\n

She takes HIV-prevention medication called PrEP, or preexposure prophylaxis, which can come in the form of daily pills or periodic injections. But there\u2019s a new option for her and millions like her \u2014 if they could only get it<\/a>. It\u2019s a drug called lenacapavir that studies have shown can offer nearly complete protection from HIV<\/a> with just two shots a year.<\/p>\n

Mutoni said access to lenacapavir would benefit sex workers who sometimes shift elsewhere for months at a time. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you know that you have that injection for six months, you feel like you are safe,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then it is very good, nice because sometimes you can also forget, if it is the pill, you can forget to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mutoni says every time she tries to get what is commonly referred to as \u201clena,\u201d it’s not available. \u201cThey tell me that it is finished,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Such is the promise and the frustration with lenacapavir, a drug developed by Gilead Sciences. Other PrEP options, including pills and an every-other-month shot of the drug cabotegravir, are very effective and widely available. But health experts say lenacapavir has the power not just to protect individuals but potentially even turn the tide of the HIV epidemic globally because of its long-lasting effects. <\/p>\n

But there are not nearly enough doses, in this East African country<\/a> or the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rate of growth (of lenacapavir rollout) isn\u2019t fast enough. We need to be getting to the millions pretty soon,\u201d said Andrew Hill, an expert in HIV treatment who is a senior visiting research fellow at the University of Liverpool in northwest England.<\/p>\n

That may start to change in the coming months. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just tentatively approved a generic version<\/a> of lenacapavir that could help speed the production and distribution of the drug to 120 low-income countries at a price of roughly $40 a year, far below the U.S. list price of $28,218. The approval was announced Monday.<\/p>\n

The hope, according to the Global Fund, is to get it to 3 million people by the end of 2028.<\/p>\n

Some, including Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, say this isn’t nearly enough. The group is calling on Gilead to make cheap doses available to more countries and to sell it directly to MSF so it can help protect more people faster. <\/p>\n

\u201cGilead says it wants to end the HIV epidemic \u2018for everyone, everywhere,\u2019 but its actions say otherwise,\u201d said Melissa Barber, MSF USA global health advocacy and policy adviser, in a recent statement. <\/p>\n

For now, people in Mbarara, where an estimated 10% of the adult population has HIV \u2014 double the rate of Uganda as a whole \u2014 have to settle for inferior choices.<\/p>\n

Julius Bampe, a polygamous man, was alarmed earlier this year when testing confirmed his younger wife had HIV. She was immediately given drugs to suppress her infection, while Bampe sought lenacapavir.<\/p>\n

But when Bampe, an itinerant builder, went to get his injection, he found that there were no doses left.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I got here, they said that is what they would have given me, but they said they didn\u2019t have enough doses for everyone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The facility that Bampe goes to received 40 lenacapavir doses in April, with instructions to focus only on pregnant mothers at risk of acquiring HIV. The guidelines were later changed to include couples like Bampe and his wife, sex workers and others.<\/p>\n

That batch was quickly administered and another 70 doses sent in June were used up within 10 days, said Tarsisio Biryeija, a nursing officer working as a counselor at Mbarara Health Centre IV.<\/p>\n

Uganda has slashed its HIV rate over the past three decades, and it’s far below that of some southern African countries. But like in many nations, health authorities in Uganda say infections are driven largely by transactional sexual encounters like those in Mbarara \u2014 and the type of transmission that lenacapavir could be so effective at stopping. <\/p>\n

Mutoni, the sex worker in Mbarara, gets counseling and other support, including condoms, from Immaculate Nyamwija, founder of a Mbarara-based organization known as Action for Improved Health and Wealth. Nyamwija offers HIV support services to women who would face discrimination elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a challenge, because the demand is high and the doses are few,\u201d she said. \u201cWho would not wish to take (lenacapavir) for six months? Who would wish to be on drugs every day?\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, and Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

For more on Africa and development: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/africa-pulse<\/a><\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MBARARA, Uganda — In the red light district in Mbarara, a city in western Uganda known in part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,122,163,45375,85,46,482,59017,12526,126],"class_list":["post-665569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-hiv-and-aids","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-medication","tag-sexual-health","tag-washington-news","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}