• Super Admin
• 06 Mar, 2026

The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared that it has supported nine countries to begin rolling out lenacapavir, a long-acting HIV prevention medicine, targeting people at high risk of infection across several African nations. The Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, made the disclosure Thursday during an online media briefing addressing global health priorities, including HIV prevention, obesity treatment advances and progress in cervical cancer elimination. Tedros said a new medicine approved in 2025 for HIV prevention, Lenacapavir, represented the most significant development in combating HIV since the first antiretroviral treatments were approved nearly 40 years ago. He said HIV remained one of the defining public health challenges of the past half-century, but it had also become one of the world's most notable successes in disease control efforts. According to him, HIV, once considered a death sentence, can now be controlled with safe and effective medication, allowing millions of people living with the virus to live longer, healthier lives worldwide. Tedros said as treatment improved and access expanded, annual AIDS-related deaths globally had dropped dramatically, declining by about 70 per cent over the past 20 years. He added that medicines originally designed to treat HIV infection were increasingly used as preventive tools, protecting people at substantial risk of contracting the virus before exposure occurred. The WHO chief reiterated that the approval of Lenacapavir for HIV prevention in 2025 marked a historic milestone in global efforts to curb transmission and accelerate progress toward ending the epidemic. He explained that lenacapavir was not a vaccine, but functioned as a long-acting antiretroviral drug administered once every six months to people who were HIV-negative, but vulnerable to infection. According to him, clinical trials have shown the medicine can prevent almost all cases of HIV among individuals at risk, making it one of the most promising prevention tools available. Tedros said WHO issued official guidelines on the use of Lenacapavir in July 2025, and later granted prequalification in October, enabling global health donors to procure and distribute the medicine. He said it was the first time the WHO developed treatment guidelines and product prequalification simultaneously rather than sequentially, accelerating equitable access to a major public health innovation. "In the past eight months, the WHO has supported the rollout of lenacapavir in Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe." Tedros warned that demand for the drug was currently exceeding supply, as orders placed by countries through donors had fallen short of the growing need. Source: https://blueprint.ng/relief-as-who-backs-rollout-of-new-hiv-prevention-drug-in-9-countries/