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HomeWeekly RoundupWorld Aids Day: SA to get new state-of-the-art HIV treatment

World Aids Day: SA to get new state-of-the-art HIV treatment

South Africans living with HIV will from 1 December be able to switch to a simpler, more affordable, more effective treatment, known as the TLD, thanks to non-profit organisation Unitaid. Polity reports that the new regimen, which will be rolled out on World Aids Day, is a three-in-one, fixed-dose combination that includes dolutegravir, lamivudine, and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate. Dolutegravir is already the drug of choice for people living with HIV in high-income countries.

Unitaid executive director Lelio Marmora welcomed the announcement of the treatment which he said will have a far-reaching impact on the global HIV response as 20% of the people worldwide who have HIV live in South Africa. South Africa has about 4.8m people on antiretroviral treatment. TLD has fewer side effects and is easier to take than other formulations – only one small tablet daily. It also has less negative interactions with other medicines such as those for tuberculosis, a leading illness of people living with HIV.

The regimen also helps prevent antimicrobial resistance, and as it involves fewer pills and side effects, patients are more likely to stick with the treatment. When patients drop treatments, or do not take them correctly, drug-resistant microbes get a chance to develop. Patients must then turn to second-line drugs, which can be up to ten times as expensive.

The report says scale-up of the new regimen is expected to contribute to reaching the UN’s goals for ending the HIV epidemic by 2030.

The Health Department says, meanwhile, is confident it can reach its target of providing treatment to 6.1m people with HIV by December 2020, despite being significantly behind schedule, reports Business Day. South Africa has the largest HIV treatment programme in the world, a reflection of the scale of its epidemic, which has affected an estimated 7.7m people, according to the most recent figures from UNAIDS. The December 2020 treatment target represents part of South Africa’s contribution to the UN’s goal of ending the HIV epidemic by 2030.

At the end of September, 4.8m people with HIV were on treatment, a target the government had aimed to reach six months earlier, said the department’s deputy director-general for communicable and non-communicable diseases, Yogan Pillay. The uptake has been particularly slow among children and men, among whom the coverage was 60% and 62%, respectively, compared to 72% among women, according to National Treasury documents released during the medium-term budget policy statement in October.

According to the report Pillay agreed that men and young people are proving the hardest populations to reach, and said a “concerted effort” is being made to provide services to them.

[link url="https://www.polity.org.za/article/govt-to-roll-out-new-state-of-the-art-hiv-treatment-2019-11-27"]Polity report[/link]

[link url="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/health/2019-11-27-health-department-to-up-its-game-to-meet-hiv-treatment-targets/"]Business Day report[/link]

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