December 9, 2015 – AIDS Hope

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Anchor lead:  New treatments for HIV are on the horizon, Elizabeth Tracey reports

World AIDS Day 2015 is kind of a good news/bad news picture, with medications that are effective in both containment and transmission, but many not receiving them.  Another hopeful development is underway, however, the creation and testing of long acting injectable medications to keep HIV in check.  Joseph Cofrancesco, an HIV expert at Johns Hopkins, is enthusiastic.

Cofrancesco: It’s really exciting to look at the field of potentially using injectable medications to prevent HIV or to treat HIV, and the reason is no matter how good and compliant we and our patients want to be, taking a medicine every single day every single day every single day, is tough. If we could have a month or every two month injection, that would be just infinitely easier for the patients. And potentially that could work for prevention as well as treatment.  :29

Such medicines are currently being tested in clinical trials, Cofrancesco says, with results eagerly anticipated worldwide.  At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.