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HIV Protection is 100% with Twice-Yearly Injections, According to a Study.
(VOR News) – On Wednesday, HIV researchers reported that women who received twice-yearly AIDS shots were 100% protected from new infections.
Young women and girls who received immunisations in a 5,000-person research in South Africa and Uganda did not get sick. About 2% of daily preventative pill users contract HIV from infected sexual partners.
Salim Abdool Karim called the injections “striking” for their protection. He directs a Durban AIDS research institute and was not engaged in the study.
Gilead’s Sunlenca HIV shots are only approved in the US, Canada, Europe, and other nations. The company is expecting male test results before asking approval to use it as an infection preventative.
The findings were discussed at an AIDS conference in Munich and published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday.
Gilead funded the study, and some researchers worked on it. Due to unexpectedly strong findings, the experiment was discontinued early, and all individuals received lenacapavir injections.
HIV prevention drugs and condom use are problematic in Africa.
Gilead’s Truvada and Descovy preventive drugs were taken by 30% of the new study participants, and that percentage gradually fell.
In Masiphumelele, South Africa, Thandeka Nkosi, who heads Gilead research at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation, described the twice-yearly injection as “quite revolutionary news.” She explained, “It simply removes the stigma surrounding taking pills to prevent HIV and allows participants to make their own decisions.”
AIDS prevention experts commend the Sunlenca vaccine, but Gilead hasn’t established a fair price for the most vulnerable. The company claimed it would seek a “voluntary licensing program,” limiting generic manufacture to a select group.
Winnie Byanyima, Geneva-based U.N. AIDS agency executive director, says “Gilead has a tool that could change the trajectory of the HIV epidemic.”
She said her organisation pressured Gilead to share Sunlenca’s patent with a U.N.-backed program that negotiates major contracts to allow generic drugmakers to provide affordable pharmaceuticals for developing nations. In the US, HIV treatment medication costs over $40,000.
The injections could “reverse the epidemic if they are made available in countries with the highest rate of new infections,” said Doctors Without Borders’ Dr. Helen Bygrave. She begged Gilead to set a fair Sunlenca price for all nations.
Last month, Gilead said it was too early to assess Sunlenca’s preventive costs in underdeveloped nations. Dr. Jared Baeten, Gilead’s senior vice president of clinical development, said the company was talking to generics makers and understood the importance of moving rapidly.
Apretude, a second HIV preventative injection every two months, is approved in some countries, mainly in Africa. Most developing nations cannot afford its $180 per patient per year price.
Byanyima said gay men in countries where same-sex partnerships are outlawed and domestic violence victims need constant protection.
Among new HIV infections in 2022, 46% were women.
Girls and women from African countries had a threefold higher risk than men. Byanyima compared the Sunlenca finding to the decades-old discovery of AIDS drugs, which made HIV infection a chronic disease rather than a death sentence.
Nelson Mandela, the president of South Africa at the time, halted patents to increase access to pharmaceuticals, lowering the cost per patient from $10,000 to $50.
Health worker Olwethu Kemele of Desmond Tutu Health Foundation expects the immunisations to boost HIV prevention services and curb the virus’s spread. She says young women hide pill use from family and lovers. She said girls struggle to continue.
According to UNAIDS, 2023 will have the lowest number of HIV-positive individuals since the late 1980s. An examination of the global pandemic was conducted.
Approximately 1.3 million people contract HIV every year, and over 600,000 die from the disease, most of them in Africa. Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East are experiencing an increase in HIV infections despite progress in Africa.
Another study presented at the AIDS conference by Andrew Hill of the University of Liverpool and colleagues estimated that Sunlenca should become cheaper at $40 per treatment until production reaches 10 million people. He stressed that health officials needed Sunlenca immediately.
He said “This is about as close to an HIV vaccine as you can get.”
SOURCE: NBC
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Canadian Man Arrested for TikTok Video That Threatened Trudeau
A TikTok video that went live earlier this week has led to a Toronto man facing charges of threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Andrew Marshall, 61, is facing two counts of uttering threats.
On Friday afternoon, the Ontario Court of Justice granted him bail with a surety and restrictions after the RCMP charged him on Wednesday.
Following Monday’s upload to TikTok, CBC Toronto conducted its own independent investigation of the video. Marshall vehemently opposes what he perceives as restrictions on free expression in Canada in it.
“I get them taken down all the time— I make videos — or all my comments, that are just simple comments,” Marsh says in the TikTok. “It’s just getting ridiculous, Marshall said.”
According to the CBC more and more people are threatening politicians. The commissioner of the RCMP has hinted that further measures may be necessary to ensure their safety.
In the TikTok video, Marshall explains in great detail how he would brutally assassinate Trudeau and Freeland “if it was up to him.”
Marshall attacks multiple groups throughout the roughly 11-minute TikTok video, including the media, Muslims, migrants, and the police who defend the government.
Among Marshall’s bail terms are the following: he must not communicate with Trudeau or Freeland; he must not use the internet to make social media posts or comments; he must not own any weapons; and he must not apply for a firearms permit.
During the bail hearing, the prosecution provided all of the evidence that is often not published.
Nate Jackson, Marshall’s attorney, stressed his client’s liberties and privileges as a Canadian in an email message.
“He has the right to freedom of speech, the right to reasonable bail and the right to a fair trial,” he said. “Having secured his release from custody, we will continue to defend Mr. Marshall’s Charter rights as his case proceeds.”
Neither Freeland’s nor the prime minister’s office would comment on the allegations, according to the CBC.
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Canada’s Unemployment Rate Hits its Highest Point Since 2017
As the job market remains dismal, the national unemployment rate in Canada has risen to its highest point since 2017. This has led some analysts to question whether the Bank of Canada should be reducing interest rates more quickly.
In spite of a net gain of 22,000 jobs, Statistics Canada reported on Friday that the unemployment rate increased to 6.6% from 6.4% the previous month. The rise was due to an uptick in part-time employment and a fall in full-time employment.
Outside of the pandemic years, the national unemployment rate has reached its highest position since May 2017, according to StatCan.
Rapid population expansion in Canada has increased the overall labour pool, but the country’s unemployment rate has persisted in rising.
The summer job market was especially tough for students, according to StatCan. Not including the pandemic, the unemployment rate among students going back to school in the autumn was 16.7 percent, which is the highest level since 2012.
Two days after the Bank of Canada dropped interest rates for the third time in a row, reducing borrowing costs to alleviate economic pressure, the most recent reading of the Canadian job market follows suit.
According to TD Bank economist Leslie Preston, who wrote a note on Friday, the central bank is “giving the OK” to keep dropping rates due to the bad August jobs report. Preston predicts two more quarter-point decreases at the remaining decisions this year.
According to CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham, there are indications that the labour market is quickly contracting more than initially thought, since the unemployment rate is nearly two percentage points greater than the record low of 4.9% in June 2022.
“Due to this, we believe the Bank should be contemplating a quicker rate of reductions in order to bring interest rates to less restrictive levels,” he informed clients in a letter on Friday morning.
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US Job Growth Falls Short of Expectations: Economy Struggles Under High Interest Rates
Last month, job growth in the United States was weaker than predicted, prompting concerns that the world’s largest economy is beginning to struggle under the weight of increased interest rates.
The Labour Department said that employers added 142,000 jobs in August, which was less than the nearly 160,000 economists predicted. It also stated that job gains over the preceding two months were weaker than expected.
However, the jobless rate went down to 4.2%, down from 4.3% in July.
The report is one of the most important indicators of the US economy and arrives at a vital time, as voters consider presidential candidates for the November election and the US central bank contemplates its first interest rate decrease in four years.
Analysts said the latest statistics kept the Federal Reserve on pace for a rate drop at its meeting this month, but did little to answer worries about the trajectory of the US economy or how much of a cut it should make.
“There has rarely been such a make-or-break number; unfortunately, today’s jobs report does not completely resolve the recession debate,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
Soaring prices in 2022 caused the Federal Reserve to hike its key lending rate to 5.3%, a nearly 20-year high.
Faced with increased borrowing costs for homes, vehicles, and other debt, the economy has slowed, helping to alleviate pressures that were boosting inflation but exacerbating market concerns.
As inflation has fallen to 2.9% in July, the Fed is under pressure to decrease interest rates to prevent additional economic deceleration.
Although job increases in August fell short of expectations, they were greater than in July, when a slowdown aroused anxieties and triggered several days of stock market volatility.
Last month, construction and health-care firms hired the most, while manufacturing and retailers laid off employees.
Ms Shah stated that the data in Friday’s report was mixed, but provided enough concerning indicators that the Fed should make a larger cut.
“On balance, with inflation pressures subdued, there is no reason for the Fed not to err on the side of caution and frontload rate cuts,” she told reporters.
Others, however, felt the advances were just steady enough to warrant a 0.25 percentage point decrease, as markets had long projected – though this could signal more cuts than expected in the coming months.
Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics’ senior North America economist, predicted that the Fed’s decision will be “close run.”
“The labour market is clearly experiencing a marked slowdown,” he said, adding that the new statistics were “overall still consistent with an economy experiencing a soft landing rather than plummeting into recession”.
Concerns about the economy are a major issue in the US election.
According to polls, a majority of Americans feel the US is in a recession, despite healthy 2.5% growth last year.
Donald Trump has declared that the economy is headed for a “crash,” and his team instantly latched on the latest data to criticise Vice President Kamala Harris, publishing a press release titled “warning lights flash as Kamala’s economy continues to weaken.”
Democrats have defended their performance, claiming that the United States survived the pandemic and inflation better than many other countries.
They believe the slowdown is a sign that the economy is returning to a more sustainable rate of growth following the post-pandemic boom.
“Although hiring has slowed, the US job market continues to generate solid job gains and wage growth that is consistently beating inflation,” the White House Council of Economic Advisors stated in a blog.
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