“It requires good, healthy demand to provide each of the general companies, it will be worth their time,” says Bekker. “We all hope the governments [across sub-Saharan Africa] They write a general product in their budgets for the future, but in fact in this way we relying on financing the donor. Even my country, South Africa, which has a good GDP and finances 80 percent of HIV, is already buying antiretrovirus for 6 million people a year. I imagine that it will take them for several years to be able to mobilize money for lenakapavir. “
From Pepfar, apparently focusing primarily on the treatment of existing patients, at the cost of prevention, clinicians such as Nomathemba Chandiwana, a scientist in Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in South Africa, they are afraid that the infection indicator will start to grow than autumn, something that will have A significant impact on public health on the continent African and more.
Speaking at the NCD Alliance Forum in Kigali last week, Chandiwana explained that the consequences of new infections are not only associated with HIV itself. Studies are increasingly showing that people living with long -term HIV infections, even people controlled by antiretroxic treatment, are more exposed to the development of metabolic states, such as hypertension, obesity and type 2 diabetes, the burden of diseases that are already growing. Sub -Saharan Africa. “HIV itself disrupts your metabolism, like many antiretroviral drugs,” says Chandiwana. “We see the same chronic diseases in people living with HIV, which in the general population, but at an earlier age and in an accelerated way.”
For this reason, there is also a need for a new generation of HIV treatments, and one of the research was the use of lenakapavir as the basis of future combinational therapies for people with a virus. In addition to potentially alleviating some metabolic side effects, he hoped that this could lead to treatment protocols that did not require people infected with HIV to take daily medicine.
“Different ideas were discussed,” says Bekker. “Could you connect the CabotegRacir two -month with a six -month injection of lenakapavir [as a form of viral suppression]So do you only come six times a year for treatment and everything will be injected? There is a weekly antiretroviral pill in the work and can you connect it with a six -month injection? This can be very liberating for people, because they all the time tell us how stigmatizing you need to take daily medications. “
However, many of these studies are now doubts, according to Bekker, it was expected that they would be financed by American resources. “It’s not just Pepfar; We are also worried about restrictions on other types of research financing, such as the National Institutes of Health, “he says. “It will be more complex to introduce innovations and proceed forward.”
According to NGURE, he still hopes that other donors will appear who can support the global fund in ordering lenakapavir, while Bekker claims that he is investigating new Options of financing HIV prevention and research through European agencies, and perhaps donor funds from sources in Scandinavia, Japan and Australia. At the same time, he believes that the events of the last month have illustrated that African countries must become able to finance more preventive efforts.
“Somehow Africa must accelerate and contribute to the fight,” he says. “I think this is a great question. How much we can also bring to this continent through countries that were not necessarily able to cover a huge amount of research and development, but in the future they must. “
At the same time, he is afraid that without the same resources from the USA, the unique opportunity that Lenacapavir may be lost may be lost.
“It is amazing that it happened when we had a breakthrough,” he says. “I think it will turn us back for many years and ultimately costs much more in public health expenses. Because ultimately, if we manage to control this epidemic faster, it will save the planet more money in the long run and save life. “