HIV: a new injection treatment now reimbursed by Medicare, to replace tablets – franceinfo

Good news for people with HIV. Since Tuesday, December 21, they can, if they wish, be prescribed an intramuscular injection of two antiretrovirals (cabotegravir, and rilpivirine) to be carried out every two months to contain the HIV infection, in order to replace their treatment with daily tablets.

This new therapy could change the lives of people infected with HIV, especially those who forget to take their daily treatment, which increases the risk of the virus developing.

The injections, which must be performed in the buttocks, dmust unfolder, for the first three, to the hospital. Thereafter, the patient will seek his treatment in a pharmacy and can receive his injections at home, with a nurse.

Note, however, that not all patients can benefit from it. “The treatment is only for patients who have been well controlled and for some time with oral therapy, who have no resistance mutation to these drugs, no co-infection with the virus. hepatitis B “, detailed Jean-Michel Molina, head of the infectious disease department at Saint-Louis hospital in Paris, at the beginning of December on France Inter.

This treatment was approved by the European Medicines Agency in mid-December, and immediately received the approval of the French authorities in Official newspaper. Some 38 million people were living with HIV globally in 2019, including 2.3 million in Europe, according to the World Health Organization.