Bizhealthcare - 10 December 2019
"Cipla, South Africa's third-largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, hosted an HIV/AIDS workshop in Sandton on Wednesday, ahead of World AIDS Day on 1 December 2019.
The workshop took place on the same day that Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize officially launched South Africa's rollout of the new triple-combination first-line HIV antiretroviral treatment (ART), referred to as TLD, a combination of tenofovir, lamivudine and dolutegravir (DTG). As a result of its multiple benefits (namely improved tolerability and higher barrier of resistance of the virus due to the drugs in the combination pill), the SA government is transitioning patients from TEE (tenofovir, emtricitabine and efavirenz) to TLD.
DTG, an integrase inhibitor approved in the United States by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in 2013, results in the reduction of circulating HIV virus in the blood, measured as the viral load in people living with HIV. When people are virally supressed, they cannot transmit the virus, which means this treatment can help to reduce the number of new infections.
According to UNAIDS, "antiretroviral therapy using dolutegravir has several advantages over other regimens, including clinical superiority, improved side-effect profile, and reduced risk of viral resistance".
A combination pill containing DTG is less expensive than other ART drugs to manufacture and will be available to people who are newly diagnosed with HIV, as well as existing patients on an efavirenz-containing regimen and who have been virally suppressed for at least six months."
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