Struggling with daily HIV meds

Struggling with daily HIV meds?

UC researcher says monthly shots may be the answer

For many people living with HIV, staying healthy depends on something deceptively simple: taking a pill every day. But for those navigating unstable housing, stigma, mental health challenges or addiction, that daily routine can be hard to maintain.

As yahoo! health recently reported, a new study suggests there may be a better option.

"We saw that there is a cadre of individuals who consistently are struggling," said Carl Fichtenbaum, MD, a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researcher who worked on the study. UC was one of the sites that enrolled patients.

Fichtenbaum, a professor of clinical medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Internal Medicine, said the gap urged the research team to "look for other solutions." Long-acting injections may be one of them.

Researchers found that long-acting injections given once a month helped people stay on treatment far more consistently than daily pills, cutting treatment failure nearly in half among patients who had previously struggled to keep up with medication.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved 453 people living with HIV who had a history of difficulty sticking to daily treatment. After helping participants stabilize on oral medication, researchers randomly assigned some to remain on pills and others to switch to monthly injections of cabotegravir and rilpivirine.

People taking daily pills fell off their treatment plans nearly twice as often as those receiving injections, researchers found.

Global health experts agree that HIV care today is highly effective, but only if people can stay on it. Treatment suppresses the virus, protects the immune system and prevents transmission. Missing doses, even intermittently, can allow the virus to rebound, making it more difficult for the body to resist infection and some cancers.

People fall out of care for all kinds of reasons: forgetting doses, struggling to afford and access prescriptions, or avoiding pharmacies and clinics because of stigma. For people dealing with mental health conditions or substance use, the challenges can be even greater.

Read the full yahoo! health article.

Featured image at top: iStock/SyhinStas.

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