JCRC Study Checks if Injection Can Suppress HIV Without Harming organs
Written by admin on August 17, 2022
The injection which has been used to slow down the destruction of the immune system has been engineered to stay in the body for at least two months, during which period, it keeps suppressing the virus and stops it from reproducing.
Researchers at the Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC) are studying a combination injection of HIV drugs Cabotegravir and rilpivirine to see whether they are effective in suppressing the virus and controlling opportunistic infections.
The injection which has been used to slow down the destruction of the immune system has been engineered to stay in the body for at least two months, during which period, it keeps suppressing the virus and stops it from reproducing.
Dr Joshua Yiga, a researcher told journalists that this study scheduled to last a year will check the drug’s effects on organs such as the liver and kidney when compared to existing oral HIV medicines with wide concerns of people on treatment getting complications in the wrong run.
He said the study is continuously recruiting participants but each depending on the time they join will be followed up for a year. The criteria allow only those that have been on first-line HIV treatment and have been responding well to their oral drugs.
Prof. Andrew Kambugu, the Executive Director of the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) which is also conducting parallel studies on injection ARVs explains that they resolved to use two different drugs concurrently because the strains of HIV spreading in the country quickly mutate defying treatment.
He says, for instance, that the rilpivirine drug being used was initially used by people who were on third line treatment and had developed resistance to basic first line treatments. He explains that the beauty of the two drugs is that they both eliminate the medicine from the body at all most the same time.
However, while studies of using injections as treatment for HIV are still going on in and out of Uganda, the Ministry of Health is currently in the process of updating guidelines to allow cabotegravir injections to be used as pre-exposure prophylaxis.
Charles Brown, an HIV activist and Executive Director of the NGO Preventive Care International says this process needs to be expedited to allow people to have choices for prevention considering that currently it’s only pills available and the fact that they are supposed to be taken daily is problematic for some people.
In addition, he said they are pushing to have PEPFAR put resources into availing the injection since the locally government has not yet shown any plans of putting money towards this.
