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What I Live By...
Here's some info on the drug
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...that-can-prevent-90-of-hiv-infections/259798/
Welcome, then, are a trio of studies in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating that Truvada, an anti-retroviral drug already on the market, can prevent new HIV infections when taken daily. The findings, which were released in part last year and appear this week in final form, offer hope for men and women -- gay and straight -- who are at high risk for contracting HIV from their partners. "What we're looking at here is a new HIV prevention strategy, an approach that hadn't been tested before," said Jared Baeten, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Washington's School of Public Health. "By having the medication already in their blood stream and in their cells, by the time they came into contact with virus, it would block the virus from taking hold. It would block them from getting infected."
Baeten's study followed 4,700 "serodiscordant" couples -- in which one member was HIV-positive and the other negative -- in Kenya and Uganda. Previous research had shown the efficacy of Truvada in reducing the risk of the disease among men who have sex with men, and Baeten's team hoped to expand the data to heterosexual partners. In addition to receiving a daily drug -- either Truvada or a placebo -- the HIV-negative subjects received STI testing, AIDS awareness counseling, and access to condoms. At the end of the trial, men and women in the Truvada arm of the study were 75 percent less likely to contract HIV than their untreated counterparts. (That figure, while impressive, is even conservative. It included every subject who was given Truvada, regardless of whether they remembered to take it.)
Later, Baeten went back and isolated just those participants who actually took the drug, as evidenced by their blood work. Their level of protection? Ninety percent.
Here in the United States, clinicians and public health officials are buoyed by the evidence that Truvada is safe and, better yet, effective. In May, an expert panel convened by the Food and Drug Administration formally recommended that Truvada be approved for use as a prophylactic, preventative medication against HIV. (Doctors are already able to prescribe it "off-label" as such, but an annual course can cost upwards of $11,000.) The FDA will make a final ruling in September; if it agrees with the panel, Truvada will be the first drug of its kind.
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...that-can-prevent-90-of-hiv-infections/259798/
Welcome, then, are a trio of studies in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrating that Truvada, an anti-retroviral drug already on the market, can prevent new HIV infections when taken daily. The findings, which were released in part last year and appear this week in final form, offer hope for men and women -- gay and straight -- who are at high risk for contracting HIV from their partners. "What we're looking at here is a new HIV prevention strategy, an approach that hadn't been tested before," said Jared Baeten, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Washington's School of Public Health. "By having the medication already in their blood stream and in their cells, by the time they came into contact with virus, it would block the virus from taking hold. It would block them from getting infected."
Baeten's study followed 4,700 "serodiscordant" couples -- in which one member was HIV-positive and the other negative -- in Kenya and Uganda. Previous research had shown the efficacy of Truvada in reducing the risk of the disease among men who have sex with men, and Baeten's team hoped to expand the data to heterosexual partners. In addition to receiving a daily drug -- either Truvada or a placebo -- the HIV-negative subjects received STI testing, AIDS awareness counseling, and access to condoms. At the end of the trial, men and women in the Truvada arm of the study were 75 percent less likely to contract HIV than their untreated counterparts. (That figure, while impressive, is even conservative. It included every subject who was given Truvada, regardless of whether they remembered to take it.)
Later, Baeten went back and isolated just those participants who actually took the drug, as evidenced by their blood work. Their level of protection? Ninety percent.
Here in the United States, clinicians and public health officials are buoyed by the evidence that Truvada is safe and, better yet, effective. In May, an expert panel convened by the Food and Drug Administration formally recommended that Truvada be approved for use as a prophylactic, preventative medication against HIV. (Doctors are already able to prescribe it "off-label" as such, but an annual course can cost upwards of $11,000.) The FDA will make a final ruling in September; if it agrees with the panel, Truvada will be the first drug of its kind.
