Additional clinical trials are now testing once-a-week dosings -- and those are also quite promising. Here's Reuters, on it all:
. . .The combination of Merck's islatravir and Gilead's lenacapavir was tested as a single-tablet regimen in adults whose HIV was already controlled with daily antiretroviral therapy. . . .
In one trial, none of the patients who switched to the weekly pill had detectable viral levels at 48 weeks, compared with 0.3% of those who remained on Gilead's daily Biktarvy [alone]. . . .
In a second trial, 0.3% of patients taking the weekly pill had detectable HIV levels or higher at 48 weeks, compared with 1.3% of those who remained on standard daily HIV regimens. . . .
The death sentence days of the 1980s are long-gone -- and this is now a very manageable diagnosis, with 40 or 50 years of life ahead. Thank bio-science for that.
[And (since I praised old "Saint Ronnie" just yesterday, on US/Canada trade policy approaches) a fairer historian would ALSO point out that AIDS research / treatments were delayed -- in the 1980s -- to the eternal shame of the same preznit Ronald Reagan, who forcefully delayed even any governmental acknowledgement of the AIDS epidemic, and did not allocate any research funding for the disease (at NIH) for nearly seven years, after the scourge was well-documented by ethical US and EU scientists.]
Onward, just the same -- grinning into the sunshine.
नमस्ते
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