Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
hiv preventionlatest news & developments
What’s the best way to spend the HIV prevention budget so that the country can drive infections down as fast as possible? We take a look at what modelling data shows. (Pexels, kaboompics)
ANTIRETROVIRAL DRUGS

180 000 infections in 2024, 47 000 by 2045 — if SA rolls out the twice-a-year HIV prevention jab fast enough

The HIV prevention shot, lenacapavir, will be rolled out at South African clinics within the next couple of months and from 2027, the health department will also buy generics.…

  • Linda Pretorius
9 min read
After a year of US funding cuts across global public health, including South Africa’s hard-hit HIV programmes, new realities are settling in. We spoke to Mitchell Warren from the New York HIV advocacy organisation, Avac, to find out what that means for South Africa. Photo: Paul Botes
AVAC

What will HIV funding look like in 2026?

After a year of US funding cuts across global public health, including South Africa’s hard-hit HIV programmes, new realities are settling in

  • Mia Malan
  • Tanya Pampalone
9 min read
We talked to experts about their take on a few of the most pressing public health issues this year. (Jay Caboz)
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HEALTHCARE

Here’s what’s on South Africa’s 2026 public health agenda

We talked to experts in obesity, tobacco, artificial intelligence, HIV, TB and the NHI to find out what we can expect — and what we can’t — this year

  • Ida Jooste
  • Tanya Pampalone
18 min read
Circumcision has been shown in large clinical trials to be effective at reducing the risk of HIV transmission. But devices need to be thoroughly tested for safety before they are used. Photo of a scalpal: Wikimedia user Rickyblax (CC BY-SA 4.0)
ADOLESCENT HEALTH

KZN rolls out controversial circumcision device amid safety concerns

The safety and track record of the CircumQ devices has been questioned

  • Tania Broughton
5 min read
South Africa’s first consignment of lenacapavir (LEN), the twice-yearly anti-HIV injection, arrived at OR Tambo International Airport last week. Photo: Mufid Majnun/Unsplash
ANTIRETROVIRAL DRUGS

SA’s first batch of LEN jabs will arrive in February. Use Bhekisisa’s dashboard to find out who should get them

Who should get what slice of the pie once the medicine is available in public clinics? And are numbers alone what would drive decisions?

  • Linda Pretorius
  • Jacques Verryn
11 min read
Two Indian generic drugmakers — Hetero and Dr Reddy’s — will be funded by the Gates Foundation and Unitaid, respectively, to produce and sell the twice-a-year anti-HIV shot around R692 per person per year. (Anna-Maria van Niekerk)
ANTIRETROVIRAL DRUGS

Two drugmakers will sell the 6-monthly anti-HIV jab for the price of the daily prevention pill

Hetero and Dr Reddy’s will be funded by the Gates Foundation and Unitaid to produce and sell the twice-a-year anti-HIV shot around R692 per person a year

  • Mia Malan
9 min read
US President Donald Trump (Flickr)
DONALD TRUMP

Small win for activists, but SA’s HIV projects won’t reopen

The $400 million the United States congress removed from a list of funding programmes the Trump administration wants to cut doesn’t cancel the cuts to HIV and TB programmes made…

  • Mia Malan
9 min read
Research indicates the anti-HIV jab, lenacapavir, protects women completely and works almost as well for men, transgender and nonbinary people. Photo: Marko Milivojevic/Pixnio
ANTIRETROVIRAL DRUGS

SA gets R520 million to buy the twice-a-year anti-HIV jab – but there’s a snag

The country isn’t getting extra money from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria; it has to use cash from a grant it has already been awarded and was cut by 16% in June

  • Mia Malan
8 min read
Twenty years of hard lessons — with a dose of good luck and a lot of persistence — has helped Hlokomela Clinic to prepare for the US funding cuts crisis. (Zano Kunene)
ANOVA HEALTH INSTITUTE

How this Limpopo NGO prepared for Trump’s funding cuts

The Anova Health Institute, which received the lion’s share of the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids funding in South Africa, had its support halted in February along with…

  • Zano Kunene
9 min read
Lenacapavir could end Aids in South Africa by 2032. How much should we pay for it? (Canva)
AIDS TREATMENT

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab could end Aids in SA by 2032

A modelling study released in March gives a clue at which price the jab, lenacapavir, would be worth the health department’s while

  • Mia Malan
12 min read
US President Donald Trump said this week that the tariff is meant to address the trade imbalance between South Africa and the US. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP/picture alliance)
CLINICAL TRIALS

Trump ends SA’s HIV and TB research grants

Cancellation letters, which end millions of rands of South African universities’ US-government funded HIV and TB research grants with immediate effect, started to roll in over…

  • Mia Malan
9 min read
The US government’s Aids fund, Pepfar, has donated 231 000 doses over two years to South Africa — 96 000 of the doses will arrive between October and December, enough for 13 728 people to use to protect themselves against HIV infection for one year.
ANTIRETROVIRAL INJECTION

South Africa to roll out HIV prevention injection CAB-LA in clinics, with US donation

CAB-LA virtually eliminates someone’s chances of contracting HIV, but costs about four times more than the government can afford to pay

  • Mia Malan
  • Linda Pretorius
5 min read
The Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/Aids says the crisis is not an isolated supply-chain issue but a ‘systemic failure’ that demands urgent government intervention
CAB LA

FDA approval of injectable HIV prevention drug an important milestone for sub-Saharan Africa

The CAB-LA injection is the first of its kind in HIV prevention interventions and only needs to be taken every eight weeks

  • Marcia Zali
2 min read
Prevention and treatment: Selena Bishop attends a consultation at Sorgin Health Centre in Nsanje, Malawi. Bishop is HIV positive is collecting her ARV refill. New research has found a bimonthly injection to be highly effective in preventing new HIV infections. Photo: Luca Sola
ANTIRETROVIRALS

Six injections a year could stop new HIV infections

New research from seven countries in Africa signals the future of HIV prevention — but what can it learn from its past?

  • Laura López González
7 min read