I’m just not really a cat-person. I’m more of a person-cat. See, a cat-person is a person who gains occasional cat-like features under a full moon or something, presumably because of a curse. I, however, am a cat who gained person-like features after watching too many episodes of Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. Very different. Please don’t confuse the two.
Anyways, welcome to The Dose! In today’s news: good news on a potential long-acting HIV prevention drug.
Long-Acting HIV Prevention Drug
A new long-acting antiretroviral HIV drug called cabotegravir showed safe and effective protection against HIV in uninfected patients when injected every 2 months, making it the first time a long-acting HIV-prevention drug has shown effectiveness comparable to daily prophylactics in a large-scale clinical trial.
In a still-running, double-blinded study led by a collaboration between the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), ViiV Healthcare, Gilead Sciences, Inc., and the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN); researchers monitored 4,570 HIV-negative participants who were randomly assigned to receive either cabotegravir and daily placebo oral tablets, or placebo injections and daily oral tenofovir (commonly known by its brand name Truvada) tablets.
In an interim review of the study data, the researchers found that cabotegravir was highly effective at protecting participants from HIV infection, and posed no safety concerns thus far. The review board also found that so far the participants on cabotegravir have shown a slightly lower HIV incidence rate (0.38%) than participants who were given Truvada (1.21%). Upon review, the board recommended early release of the results to date as it considered them to be in the interest of public health, however the study is still ongoing and patients are currently being monitored for long-term health and safety effects of the drug.
Long-acting versions of medications that help prevent HIV infection—also known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP—are much sought after both for convenience and for the discretion/privacy concerns of patients, as having a bottle of a daily prophylactic pill has the potential to put some LGBTQ patients at risk whose living situations are unsafe towards or unaccepting of their identities, and for whom the discovery of their possession of a PrEP medication could pose risk. Injectible versions of the medication would also provide a useful and sometimes essential alternative for patients who either have trouble taking or cannot take a prophylactic medication orally. As of now, the only FDA-approved form of PrEP is in daily oral tablets such as tenofovir or emtricitabine (also known by its brand name Descovy).
This particular study only recruited among transgender women and men who have sex with men, however another study running concurrently is following over 3,000 women who identified as sexually active in southern and eastern Africa, and the review board recently recommended the study’s continuation. You can find the full study data for the ongoing trials in both population groups here and here.
And that’s all y’all! Hope you enjoyed this mini Dose. In today’s personal news: I got new roller skates! I’m so excited. I haven’t been able to roller skate in like two years because my old skates were busted AF and I never got around to replacing them, so when they come I’m about to tear these streets UP! (While social distancing, of course). Speaking of social distancing, apparently EVERYBODY has quarantine skating on the brain because skates are fucking sold out E-VER-Y-WHERE. Seriously go look it’s like a skate famine out there. But whatever. I’m excited. I’m excited to wear crop tops and short shorts and once again reclaim my title of local roller skate menace. Maybe I’ll start a gang. A skate gang. Just a gang of hot twenty-somethings menacing the neighborhood in skates and short shorts (while social distancing, of course).
Anyways, bye nerds. Love ya, be well, wear a face mask, don’t go to parties, tell your friends you love them, etc. etc.