HIV Prevention News Around The Globe

Concern as children left behind in treatment of HIV

Every Friday of the month, Immaculate Mwende*, a community health promoter in Embu, hosts a merry-go-round chama at her house. While the women gather to share their financial burdens and goals, the conversations often veer into intimate exchanges about their children’s welfare, the very issue that brought them together in the first place. Each of the women has a child living with HIV.

At the end of last year, a staggering 1.4 million children were living with HIV globally, with 86 per cent residing in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Approximately 120,000 children newly acquired the virus. This is largely due to stigma and logistical challenges hindering mothers’ access to essential care, including antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. Exacerbating this crisis is a severe shortage of ARVs.

This was revealed in a recent United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS) progress report. In 2023, there was a significant drop in new HIV infections among adults, having reduced by 65 per cent since the peak of HIV in 1995. A further 77 per cent of adults aged 15 years and older were on HIV treatment in 2023. In Kenya for instance, the number of those receiving treatment has almost doubled, resulting in an almost 90 per cent viral suppression rate among those on treatment. Viral suppression means that the amount of HIV in a person’s blood is so low that it can't be detected by a standard test.

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HIV Vaccine Candidates Fail to Reduce Infections

The results of the PrEPVacc HIV vaccine trial conducted in Africa between 2020 and 2024 show conclusively that neither of the two experimental vaccine regimens tested reduced HIV infections among the study population.

The PrEPVacc vaccine trial results, announced at AIDS 2024 in Germany in July 2024, report more infections in the two vaccine arms than in the placebo arms. Still, the researchers say they cannot draw a definitive conclusion about this because the statistical ‘confidence intervals’ for the comparison are so wide, indicating high uncertainty.

PrEPVacc tested two different combinations of HIV vaccines.

One regimen combined a DNA vaccine (DNA-HIV-PT123) with a protein vaccine (AIDSVAX B/E), and the other combined the same DNA vaccine, a modified non-dividing virus vector (MVA-CMDR), and a protein-based vaccine (CN54gp140).

The vaccination schedule included four vaccine injection visits: three over approximately six months and a fourth a year after enrolment.

The PrEPVacc trial was stopped in November 2023 when it became clear to independent experts monitoring the study data that there was little or no chance of the vaccines demonstrating efficacy in preventing HIV acquisition.

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Africa is beating HIV, but the rest of the world is falling behind.

More than a million people were newly infected with HIV last year, adding to the nearly 40 million people currently living with the disease. But for the first time since 1981, when the disease first emerged, the majority of new HIV infections occurred outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

That’s a major milestone. The region — which includes 49 countries in southern, western, central, and eastern Africa — still bears the brunt of the epidemic. In 2023, 64 percent of people living with HIV were in sub-Saharan Africa, and about 62 percent of all AIDS-related deaths from the disease occurred there. But in the past few decades, there has been tremendous progress. The number of people in sub-Saharan Africa becoming newly infected with HIV has plummeted from 2.1 million in 1993 to 640,000 within 30 years — a 70 percent drop.

But as the number of new infections in the region declines, progress in the rest of the world has been stalling, or even reversing, according to a recent report from UNAIDS, the United Nations’ dedicated HIV and AIDS program.

New HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East/North Africa have been increasing over the last two decades, due to a variety of factors including a lack of access to HIV testing and treatment, displacement and migration, and an uptick in the number of people using intravenous drugs. Before 2009, less than 10 percent of all new HIV infections occurred across those regions — but last year, that number rose to just over 20 percent.

You can read more about the report here

Long-Acting Injectable Cabotegravir For HIV Prevention Safe In Pregnancy, Suggests Study

According to new research, a long-acting injectable of cabotegravir (CAB-LA, Apretude; ViiV Healthcare) is safe and well-tolerated before and during pregnancy when used as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The follow-up phase trial (NCT03164564) included cisgender women, with more than 300 pregnancies and infants.1

CAB-LA, which is administered intramuscularly every 2 months, was previously shown to be an effective HIV prevention method; however, data on the safety of the injection during pregnancy was limited. The open-label extension study of the CAB-LA efficacy trial included women who did not have HIV and had the potential to become pregnant during the study. Participants were monitored for both pregnancy-related adverse events (AEs)—such as gestational hypertension, pre-eclampsia, and weight gain—and infant outcomes—such as miscarriage, stillborn or intrauterine fetal death, premature birth, or low birthweight.

A total of 367 pregnant women were enrolled in the trial. All women received a 3-step regimen with different treatments or placebos depending on the group they were placed in. Arm A received the following: daily oral CAB (30 mg) with oral tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) placebo for 5 weeks (step 1), injections of CAB-LA at 2 time points 4 weeks apart and every 8 weeks after that time followed by daily oral TDF/FTC placebo at week 5 (step 2); and daily TDF/FTC for up to 48 weeks no later than 8 weeks following the last injection (step 3).

You can read more about the study here

AIDS conference discloses 7th HIV case apparently cleared of virus

The leading international conference on AIDS which concluded over the weekend has disclosed a seventh HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) case who has been apparently cleared of the virus after long-term treatment and stem cell transplants.

Organizers of the 25th International AIDS Conference, which ended on July 26, identified the case to be “the second Berlin patient.” An earlier patient in Berlin was identified as an HIV remission case in 2007.

At a news conference on July 24, the organizers also cited three other persons who had HIV remission among the seven. The World Health Organization (WHO), in a statement on Thursday, said the second Berlin patient “confirms the existence of several routes to explore different interventions to stimulate specific stem cells to reach long-term HIV control and cure.”

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Advocates Spotlight

WACI Health's youth leadership and advocacy program recently onboarded a new cohort of mentees. This program aims at creating a cadre of high quality and impact youth advocates. Our current cohort has young people from different African countries who meet online twice a week for mentorship. The program involves regularly bringing in mentors and experts to speak on and share their experiences. Meet Nigel Nzalla who is an HIV prevention advocate based in Kenya.

Nigel Nzalla is a passionate communications professional with a growing interest in the field of HIV prevention. As a recent Kenyan intern at WACI Health, he has gained valuable experience in crafting clear and engaging health communications materials, particularly for audiences in Africa.

Nigel is particularly motivated by understanding the persistent challenges surrounding HIV prevention on the continent, despite the efforts of major organizations. He believes that effective communication strategies are key to overcoming these challenges and empowering communities to adopt healthy behaviors.

Leveraging his background in communication and his current role at WACI Health, Nigel strives to simplify complex health topics, specifically those related to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR). His goal is to create informative and engaging content that resonates with the public and promotes positive health outcomes.