The first patient in Kenya was injected with antiretroviral (ARV) medication on March 31, after being enrolled in a clinical trial being conducted at the Aga Khan University Hospital, Nairobi (AKUHN).
This is a collaborative study involving eight sites in Africa including AKUHN. The same trial is being carried out in other sites in Kenya as well as in Uganda and South Africa.
Prof Reena Shah, Chair of the Department of Medicine at Aga Khan University is the principal investigator of the study. She says this may change how HIV treatment is administered.
“Successful treatment of HIV leads to control of viral multiplication. This success relies on people taking their drugs regularly. The way someone takes their drugs may depend on several factors that include the number of drugs taken, the ease of swallowing them, the number of times they are taken, their taste, as well as the associated side effects among other factors.”
The Ministry of Health estimates that the number of people living with HIV on lifesaving treatment has increased from 600,000 in 2013 to 1.2 million in 2021.
HIV treatment, now commonly known as Antiviral Therapy, has been in use since the first drug Zidovine was discovered in 1987. Improvements in the treatment have aimed at enhancing drug effectiveness through combining drugs. Currently, most HIV drug regimens consist of three different drugs that need to be taken orally daily. These combinations, however, frequently result in side effects from the drugs and cause pill burden.
“This study is looking at using a different way of taking the HIV medicine by using injections of two medicines given once every two months. These injected medicines have worked well in previous studies done in the USA, Europe and South Africa but has not yet been evaluated in the rest of Africa,” added Prof Reena.
It is thought that taking medicine by injection will improve people’s lives because they no longer have to swallow medicines every day. It is also expected to deal with the risk of forgetting to swallow pills and may improve the success of the HIV treatment.
To learn more about the study, click here.