A doctor holds needles. (KERRY SHERIDAN/AFP/Getty)
The European Union has approved a groundbreaking treatment for HIV – the first complete, long-lasting and once or bi-monthly injectable – in what activists have hailed as a “game-changer”.
American drug-maker ViiV Healthcare, which specialises in HIV, announced Monday (21 December) that the European Commission gas had rubber-stumped the revolutionary, long-acting regimen, after it was first submitted to the bloc’s medicine authority last year.
The treatment consists of two drugs known as cabotegravir and rilpivirine, the latter developed by Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies, that are injected once a month, or once every other month, by a healthcare provider into the buttocks.