The first doses of Gilead Science’s HIV-prevention shot lenacapavir have been shipped to Eswatini, marking the start of a new donor push to help African countries stem the tide of new infections.
The US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria are collaborating to provide high-burden African countries — including SA — with the resources to acquire their first stocks of the twice-yearly injection.
The US expects African governments to increase their domestic investments for HIV, in line with its new America First global health strategy, said Brad Smith, senior adviser for the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy, in a briefing with reporters on Tuesday. Cheaper generic copies of lenacapavir are expected to become available in 2027.
SA plans to acquire its first dose of lenacapavir with a $29.2m grant from the Global Fund, which will cover slightly more than 450,000 people for the first year. The SA Health Products Regulatory Authority approved the shot in late October.
Eswatini was selected as the first recipient of Pefpar-funded lenacapavir because it has the world’s highest rate of new infections.
The speed with which lenacapavir had reached the market was unprecedented, said Gilead CEO Daniel Day. “It’s the first time in history that a new HIV medicine is reaching a country in Sub-Saharan Africa in the same year as approval in the US,” he said.
The US government and the Global Fund have committed to co-funding enough lenacapavir to supply 2-million people by 2028.
“Innovations are the key to accelerating progress against the deadliest infectious diseases, but they only have an impact if they can be deployed at scale and at speed to the people who can benefit the most - and that is what we are doing,” said Global Fund executive director Peter Sands.
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