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Mail & Guardian
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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
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
To end Aids by 2043, the South African government says it could get a group of local pharmaceutical companies to make generic shots of lenacapavir from 2027 onwards. There is, however, a hitch. None of the companies that will be involved have a licence to make the jab. (Julia Koblitz/ Unsplash)
AARON MOTSOALEDI

SA wants to make its own six-monthly HIV prevention jabs by 2027. But there’s a hitch

None of the companies that will be involved have a licence from the inventor of Lenacapavir, Gilead Sciences, to make the jab

  • Mia Malan
9 min read
One in 10 clinics in South Africa will start to hand out a twice-a-year anti-HIV jab as early as February. The country’s medicines regulator, Sahpra, says it’s on track to announce its registration decision within the next few days, by the end of October. So who should get LEN first? (Anna-Maria van Niekerk)
AARON MOTSOALEDI

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab could be in 360 clinics by February. Who should get the first doses?

The country’s medicines regulator Sahpra says it’s on track to announce its registration decision by the end of October

  • Mia Malan
10 min read
Long shot?: In April next year, South Africa plans to start rolling out an anti-HIV jab, taken only twice a year, that could end Aids in the country within 14 to 18 years. But is our public health system equipped to keep track of millions, who are on the shot? (Unsplash)
AIDS

The six-monthly anti-HIV jab is coming. But can SA keep track of millions of users?

The shot, called Lenacapavir, has a 100% success rate in preventing young women from getting HIV through sex

  • Ida Jooste
  • Mia Malan
10 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
Nompilo Mdluli — in brown jacket — and Simphiwe Matsebula — in black jersey are worried that the Pepfar pause on HIV services in eSwatini could negatively affect the lives of people living with HIV especially daily access to antiretroviral treatment which helps keep their virus under control.
AFRICA

People living with HIV in fear as impact of donor funding cuts begin to show in eSwatini

HIV prevention services have been heavily affected by the pause on the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids in the country, with remote mobile clinics that served hard-to-reach…

  • UNAIDS
7 min read
The health department anticipates that it could start to use government money to buy cheaper generics of anti-HIV jab the lenacapvir by April 2027. (Unsplash)
AARON MOTSOALEDI

SA plans anti-HIV jab roll-out at hundreds of clinics by April

The health department hopes to make the twice-a-year anti-HIV injection lenacapavir available soon and to be buying generics by 2027

  • Mia Malan
11 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
The pathological hatred Trump inspires on the left and the quasi-religious devotion he commands on the right reflect tensions within American democratic culture. File Photo
AIDS

It’s the ‘Donald disease’ that’s making us sick

With the 12 specialised key population clinics in South Africa funded by the US government, and now shuttered, getting treatment at government clinics has been difficult, if not…

  • Tanya Pampalone
  • Mia Malan
11 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
The Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria says it will fund the roll-out of the twice-yearly anti-HIV jab, lenacapavir, for poorer countries, including South Africa, with or without the help of the US government’s Aids fund, Pepfar
AIDS

The Global Fund will roll out the twice-yearly anti-HIV jab — with or without Pepfar

In December, the Global Fund and the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief committed to funding the roll-out of lenacapavir in countries they support

  • Ida Jooste
9 min read
HIV vaccine the only real answer
ANTIRETROVIRAL PILLS

How the health department will deal with Pepfar’s near collapse

Until recently, the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief funded nonprofits in South Africa to help provincial health departments test people for HIV and put them on…

  • Mia Malan
10 min read
A volunteer demonstrates an HIV screening test. (File photo)
CDC

Trump’s funding cuts hit HIV, GBV services hard

The US president’s cutting of financial support has cut life-saving treatment for many in SA

  • Umamah Bakharia
7 min read
The original grants of Pepfar-funded organisations who are funded through the Centres for Disease Control have been reinstated after a federal judge enforced a temporary restraining order blocking US President Donald Trump’s administration from freezing federal grants. (Shealah Craighead/Flickr)
AND INCLUSION

Some Pepfar projects can now restart in full, without a waiver

A federal judge has enforced a temporary restraining order blocking Donald Trump from freezing federal grants

  • Mia Malan
7 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)
AND INCLUSION

UPDATE | Embassy confirms Pepfar projects will restart, despite Trump aid ban

Such programmes still qualify for a limited waiver, which will expire towards the end of April, but only for approved activities

  • Mia Malan
7 min read
A programme meant to allow pharmacists and nurses working at private pharmacies to prescribe HIV treatment or anti-HIV pills and jabs is on hold because of a drawn-out court case
ARVS

Popping into your local pharmacy for anti-HIV pills and jabs could help slow new infections. So why is it not allowed in SA?

A programme meant to allow pharmacists and nurses working at private pharmacies to prescribe HIV treatment or anti-HIV pills and jabs is on hold because of a drawn-out court case

  • Angela Tembo
  • Tsitsi Nyamuzihwa
7 min read
The Aurum Institute is making it easier for people to get HIV prevention medication. (Getty)
AIDS

Four ways to make it easy to take the HIV prevention pill

The Aurum Institute is making it easier for people to get HIV prevention medication

  • Maria Sibanyoni
  • Jacqueline Pienaar
  • Vuyolwethu Ncube
  • Matshidiso Chabane
8 min read
First comes love: After Mandisa and Siya Dukashe married, family pressures mounted for a baby. What followed was a long road to two lovely, HIV-negative girls. (Oupa Nkosi/M&G)
HIV

Bringing home baby when your bae is HIV-positive and you’re not

Sperm washing, assisted insemination and long hospital waits — if you were lucky. This is what pregnancy when you were HIV-positive used to look like

  • Nelisiwe Msomi
8 min read
Pregnant and HIV negative? The HIV prevention pill might be for you — after talking to your doctor.
HIV INFECTIONS

Busted: The myths that could be standing between you and the HIV prevention pill

A single daily tablet could slash your risk of HIV infection, could it be for you?

  • Joan Van Dyk
5 min read