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The results so far suggest that the injectable drug cabotegravir was 89% more effective than the pills at preventing HIV infection.
Researchers are halting a study soon after finding that an injection of an experimental drug every two months worked better than daily pills to help prevent women from contracting HIV from an infected sexual partner.
The news is a boon to AIDS prevention efforts, especially in Africa, where the study took place and where women have few discreet ways to protect themselves from infection.
The results so far suggest that the drug, cabotegravir, was 89% more effective at preventing HIV infection than the Truvada pills, although both reduce that risk.
The findings mirror those announced earlier this year by a similar study that tested shots against daily pills in gay men.
Cabotegravir is developed by ViiV Healthcare, which is primarily owned by GlaxoSmithKline, with Pfizer Inc and Shionogi Limited. The study was sponsored by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the ViiV. The drugs were supplied by ViiV and Truvada’s manufacturer Gilead Sciences.
“This is an important, important advance,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, the principal infectious disease physician at the NIH. “I don’t think we can overemphasize the importance of this study.”
The drug promises HIV prevention help to young women – “the ones who need it most,” Fauci said.
According to a leading study, Sinead Delany-Moretlwe of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, young women may be twice as likely as men to contract HIV in some areas of the world.
“They need discrete options … without having to negotiate with their partners” to use measures like condoms, said ViiV’s Deborah Waterhouse.
The study involved more than 3,200 participants in seven African countries who were randomly assigned to receive shots every two months or daily Truvada pills. Independent monitors advised stopping the study after seeing that only 0.21 percent of women who received the shots contracted the AIDS virus versus 1.79 percent of women who took the pills.
There were more side effects, especially nausea, with the daily pills.
Cabotegravir manufacturers are seeking regulatory approval to sell it for this purpose, and Truvada is already widely used.
“The urgent work now” is to make all preventive drugs accessible and more widely available, said Mitchell Warren, who heads the AVAC, formerly known as the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, a nonprofit organization focused on prevention efforts that they played no role in the study.
Condoms remain widely recommended because they help prevent a number of sexually transmitted diseases, not just HIV.
“People need HIV prevention choices,” and that offers a new option, Warren said in a statement.
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