Sweet success as ‘game-changing’ antiretroviral for babies is rolled out in Africa

Aid agencies have distributed a strawberry-flavoured tablet for children living with HIV in six African countries, the first generic paediatric version of a key antiretroviral, global health agency UNITAID said on Sunday.

UNITAID and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) funded and distributed 100,000 packs of the dolutegravir formulation across Nigeria, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Benin, UNITAD’s spokesperson Herve Verhoosel said.

About 1,8 million children worldwide live with HIV, but only half receive any treatment, often hard to administer due to the bitter taste or incorrectly dosed by crushing adult pills. Some 100,000 children die of Aids annually.

With the recent delivery of the formulation in those six first countries, this project is now reality.

—  UNITAD spokesperson Herve Verhoosel

“With the recent delivery of the formulation in those six first countries, this project is now reality,” Verhoosel said of the initiative first announced in December.

He said the procurement is designed to kick-start demand and that major donors have “rapidly moved to sustainable onward procurement, which will enable national scale-up and widespread access for all eligible children at an unprecedented pace”.

The first-line HIV treatment is recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) from the age of four weeks and three kilograms, but it had been out of reach for babies because of the lack of appropriate formulations.

UNITAID and CHAI reached a pricing agreement with generic drugmakers Viatris and Macleods for the dispersible paediatric formulation of dolutegravir.

The estimated cost for combination therapy will now be about $120 (about R1,700) for a child’s annual treatment, compared with $480 (about R6,800) now, making it a “game-changer” for poorer countries, UNITAID said.

Verhoosel said a partnership with Medicines Patent Pool allowed for voluntary licensing agreements across 121 countries.

— Reuters