Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
unitaidlatest 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
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
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
A professional healthcare worker wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) carry an oxygen tank inside a temporary ward dedicated to the treatment of possible Covid-19 patients at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria on January 11, 2021. (Photo by Phill Magakoe/AFP)
ARGENTINA

After India: The countries on the brink of another Covid oxygen crisis

The need for medical oxygen to treat Covid-19 patients in low- and middle-income countries has more than doubled in the past two months, and many of these countries faced oxygen…

  • Madlen Davies
  • Rosa Furneaux
16 min read