Promising drug for people with multidrug-resistant HIV arrives in Spain
It is available in Spain from July 1st. lenacapavira new drug to help AIDS patients who, despite being infected with the disease more than two decades ago, they still can’t make their presence subside human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in your body.
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This condition is called “Multi-drug resistant HIV” and it is assumed that there are about of them in Spain 250 people suffer from thisless than 1% of the 150,000 people living with HIV in our country.
A small group, however, This is of vital importance to our country’s health care workers.because they reflect the lives of patients who have failed to control the viral load in their bodies after trying multiple treatments.
How is HIV treated?
At the moment, HIV is a disease that there is no curebut it has a very effective and safe treatment that can reduce the replication of the virus in the body of infected people.
This reduction is made by the virus undetectable and therefore, indescribable. A goal that helps patients live a stigma-free life and stops the spread of the virus.
Treatment chronic and are usually taken orally daily to keep the virus in check.
However, those with multidrug-resistant HIV cannot benefit from this advancement because, as the word itself indicates, they are resistant to treatment. Specifically, resistant to two or more of four families of antiretroviral drugs which are used to suppress the viral load.
A state that does not allow them to receive effective treatment to fight HIV.
This is a serious clinical and public health problem that can be addressed by lenacapavirwhich comes to Spain from the pharmaceutical company Gilead under the commercial name Sunlenca.
New Drug for Multidrug-Resistant HIV
Pau ArbosDirector of Gilead’s HIV division in Spain and Portugal, at the presentation of the drug on July 9 this year, emphasized that HIV with multiple drug resistance This is a “clinical health problem in our country.”even if it affects a small group of people.
Those who suffer from it have a “very poor prognosis” and risk of infection that could lead to the spread of the virus.
As it was recognized Dr. Luis Martin Carboneroa specialist in the HIV department at the University Hospital La Paz in Madrid, was also present at the press conference:
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“These are the most difficult patients. and that they give us more headaches because they have a higher risk of death and also a higher likelihood of developing other diseases.”
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“We must not forget that people who continue to replicate the HIV virus can still transmit it, and if they transmit a super-resistant virus, This is even more difficult to deal with.”
For this reason, research continues to focus on this problem, and to date, up to three drugs have been developed that target multidrug-resistant HIV. Lenacapavir was the first drug to be adopted in Spain.
83% efficiency
Lenacapavir (Sulenka (as a trade name) is a capsid inhibitor, which is explained Dr. Jose Luis Blancospecialist in the infectious diseases service of the Barcelona Hospital Clinic and researcher at CAPELLA, is new for two fundamental reasons:
- It is administered subcutaneously twice a year.
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It has the ability to act in three life cycles of the virus, preventing it from attaching to the capsid, spreading or replicating.
For this reason, those who participated in the CAPELLA study noticed that it significantly reduced the amount of viral load in the body.
The study involved 73 patients from 42 hospital centers all over the world that they carried on average 24 years of HIV treatment unhappy.
After 52 weeks of treatment 83% maintained an undetectable viral loadNot only that, they achieved significant immunological recovery.
Great news coming to Spain fully funded by Social Security and after implementation in the USA, France, Italy, Austria, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.
According to Dr. Martin Carbonero, this treatment will help two very specific patient profiles:
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People from between 50 and 60 years old who had been receiving monotherapy since 1993 and had always tried newly released drugs and therefore generated a lot of resistance.
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Patients aged 30 to 40 years, They were born with HIV between the 80s and 90s. and who have also been consistently treated but still have highly resistant viruses.
Now you can carry out treatment in your semi-annual hospital visit and start living a life with much less abuse and less stigma.
In addition, Dr. Blanco announced the creation of a group that will continue to investigate cases of multidrug resistance in Spain.