LONDON (AP) \u2014 The European Medicines Agency has recommended authorizing a twice-yearly injectable drug aimed at preventing HIV, which scientists say could help end the virus\u2019 transmission. <\/p>\n
In a statement on Friday, the EU drug regulator said its evaluations of lenacapavir, sold as Yeytuo in Europe by Gilead Sciences, showed the drug is \u201chighly effective\u201d and \u201cconsidered to be of major public health interest.\u201d Once the regulator\u2019s guidance is accepted by the European Commission, the authorization is valid in all 27 EU member countries as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.<\/p>\n
Last year, studies suggested<\/a> that lenacapavir, already used to treat people with HIV, was nearly 100% effective in stopping transmission in both women and men. <\/p>\n Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the U.N. AIDS agency, has said the drug \u201ccould change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic\u201d if it is made available to everyone who needs it. <\/p>\n In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized<\/a> lenacapavir to prevent HIV. Earlier this month, the World Health Organization recommended countries offer the drug as an additional option to people at risk of the virus. <\/p>\n Condoms help guard against HIV infection if used properly. Other medication aimed at preventing HIV include daily pills that people can take and another injectable drug called cabotegravir, which is given every two months. Lenacapavir\u2019s six-month protection makes it the longest-lasting type, an option that could attract people wary of more visits to health clinics or stigma from taking daily pills.<\/p>\n Critics have raised concerns, however, that lenacapavir may not be made widely enough available to stop global outbreaks of HIV. Drugmaker Gilead<\/a> has said it will allow cheap, generic versions to be sold in 120 poor countries with high HIV rates \u2014 mostly in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean. <\/p>\n But it has excluded nearly all of Latin America<\/a>, where rates are far lower but increasing, sparking concern the world is missing a critical opportunity to stop the disease.<\/p>\n Last year, there were about 630,000 AIDS deaths worldwide and more than 40 million people are estimated to have HIV, according to UNAIDS. <\/p>\n UNAIDS chief Byanyima has previously suggested that President Donald Trump make a deal with Gilead to produce and license its \u201cmagical\u201d prevention drug lenacapavir<\/a> across the world<\/a> to the millions of people who need it.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 The European Medicines Agency has recommended authorizing a twice-yearly injectable drug aimed at preventing HIV,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[28,12,1076,13390,5335,793,97,32952,243,965],"class_list":["post-40754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-europe","tag-european-commission","tag-european-union","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-hiv-and-aids","tag-medication","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}