HIV preventive medicine becomes a reality

The US Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that taking Truvada, Gilead Sciences' product, the drug has long been used to treat HIV-infected patients, which can help healthy people everyday. prevent infection of deadly century diseases - AIDS.

An FDA advisory council will vote to draw the final conclusion to see if Truvada is widely used as a preventive measure for those at high risk of sexually transmitted HIV infection. or not. All subsequent FDA decisions, though not mandatory, still listen to the advice of this advisory council.

If approved by the advisory board, Truvada will officially be recognized as an HIV prevention drug and become a major breakthrough in the AIDS campaign for 30 years. Apart from Truvada, no drugs and vaccines are thought to have the same effect.

California-based Gilead Sciences has launched Truvada since 2004. Truvada is actually a combination of two familiar drugs, Emtriva and Viread. This drug works to prevent HIV replication. The less HIV patients have, the lower the risk of developing AIDS.

Truvada is the only drug that works to prevent HIV infection in healthy people

An estimated 30,000 Australians, 1.2 million Americans and more than 14 million Africans are infected with HIV. If not treated with antiviral drugs, the disease will develop into AIDS, a fatal disease due to the body's inability to fight infection.

The first report by scientists on the effects of Truvada's HIV infection prevention has been published since 2010. A study conducted over three years has shown that, at regular daily doses, Truvada is capable of reducing the risk of virus infection by 44% for healthy men and gay people. Another study found Truvada reduced the risk of HIV infection by 74% for male partners if the woman was infected.

Although positive prevention results have been obtained in men, the FDA recommends that this effect of Truvada in women be incompatible. Scientists believe that women may need higher doses.

In addition, FDA also asked Gilead Sciences to adjust Truvada's price to less than $ 11,000 per year for each patient.