HIV Prevention Shot Shows Promise

Quarterly injections of a new experimental drug could completely protect people from contracting HIV, according to the results of testing conducted on monkeys.

According to a preliminary test result release published in Science, a new experimental drug has proven to prevent Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections in macaques monkeys with a 100% success rate if administered via injection every month to three months.

According to the study, researcher gave injections of GSK744, a long-acting investigational antiretroviral, to a test group of macaques monkeys at the start and at the halfway point of an 8 week trial. One week after the initial administration, the moneys were exposed to injections of HIV repeatedly until the end of the trail. Over that entire time, not one money who was given the initial treatment were infected by HIV. Another test group was given only one injection of the preventative at the start of the trail and daily exposed to HIV until infection occurred. In this group's case, protection was found to decrease over time as the levels of the preventative drug in the blood began to drop. Amazingly, this took months to happen (about 10 weeks on average), indicating that the drug can stay in the blood, protecting a patient from HIV for weeks upon weeks. With this evidence, researchers concluded that the drug would be effective in preventing an HIV infection if administered month or once every quarter (four times a year).

The World Health Organization (WHO) currently has standing recommendations as of 2013 that HIV patients be given access to antiretroviral drugs that are currently available to prevent the spread of the HIV virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains that a combination of three available antiretroviral drugs in pill form taken regularly can prevent a HIV patient's condition from worsening if caught early enough. Still, it should be noted that these medications are often costly without insurance, and have to be taken regularly, if not daily.

If GSK744 proves to be safe in humans, it will be the first long-lasting antiretroviral that can be used like a vaccination, protecting people from ever getting HIV in the first place.

According to the researchers, trail testing of use of the long-acting shots as treatment in pre-existing HIV patients is already underway. More research into its safety will have to be conducted before it can be approved for use as a preventative in humans.

The preliminary study results were published in Science for early release on March 4. A full report is expected at a later date.