LEN won’t sell itself: 6 lessons from HIV prevention pills
South Africa is rolling out Lenacapavir (LEN), a highly effective twice-yearly HIV prevention injection, but faces challenges in public awareness and adoption. Lessons from previous oral PrEP rollouts suggest that medical efficacy alone is insufficient to drive public health outcomes without deliberate demand creation.
Why it matters
Effective HIV prevention strategies are critical for public health in South Africa, and this analysis highlights the gap between medical innovation and community implementation.
South Africa now has one of the most effective HIV prevention medicines , in the form of a twice-yearly injection, ever developed. But there’s a catch: people have to want it — and know where to get it.
Lenacapavir, or LEN, protects HIV-negative people against getting the virus for six months at a time and is almost 100% effective. South Africa started rolling it out at 360 government clinics in June, but next year, when generics become available the country will start rolling the medicine much more widely.
Analysis of Wits University’s Health Economics and Epidemiology Office, HE 2 RO, shows that if between onel and 2-million people take LEN each year between now and 2043, South Africa will be able to prevent enough new HIV infections to end Aids as a public health threat within the next 17 years.
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