The brand name version of DTG is Tivicay, produced by ViiV Healthcare, which is majority-owned by GlaxoSmithKline. PHOTO | FILE
Kenya is the first African country to start using a
generic version of the latest AIDS drug that can improve and prolong the
lives of tens of thousands of people who suffer severe side effects and
resistance to other treatments.
A generic of
Dolutegravir (DTG), first approved in the United States in 2013, is
being given to 20,000 patients in Kenya before being rolled out in
Nigeria and Uganda later this year, with the backing of global health
agency Unitaid.
DTG is the drug of choice for people
with HIV in high-income countries who have never taken antiretroviral
therapy before and for those who have developed resistance to other
treatment.
It is also easier to take than currently
used formulations (one small tablet taken daily), and patients are less
likely to develop resistance.
"I had constant
nightmares and no appetite," said Nairobi resident Doughtiest Ogutu, who
started taking the drug this year because of her resistance to other
treatments.
"My appetite has come back... My body is working well with it."
Ogutu,
who has been living with HIV for 15 years, said her viral load - the
amount of HIV in her blood - has fallen tenfold from 450,000 to 40,000
since she started on DTG.
Sub-Saharan Africa has been
at the epicentre of the HIV epidemic for decades and home to nearly
three quarters of all people with HIV/Aids.
UNAids aims for 90 per cent of people diagnosed with HIV to receive antiretroviral treatment by 2020.
The brand name version of DTG is Tivicay, produced by ViiV Healthcare, which is majority-owned by GlaxoSmithKline.
Drug resistance
About
15 per cent of HIV patients are resistant, which means the medicines do
not work on them, said Sylvia Ojoo, Kenya country director for the
University of Maryland School of Medicine, who is monitoring the
introduction of DTG.
Unitaid works to bring medicines
to market quickly and to reduce manufacturing costs by allowing generic
companies to access patents for a small royalty and produce them cheaply
for the developing world.
Kenya,
with one of the world's largest HIV positive populations, has made
great strides in addressing HIV in its public medical facilities.
"The
health systems we have in place allow for rapid deployment," said Ojoo.
"It makes it relatively easy to introduce new interventions."
About
1.5 million Kenyans are HIV positive, with more than two-thirds on
treatment, said Martin Sirengo, head of Kenya's National Aids and STI
Control Programme.
The number of new infections in
Kenya has almost halved over the last decade to 80,000 a year, he said,
thanks to increased testing, treatment and awareness.
Reporting by Daniel Wesangula. Additional reporting by Annie Njanja.
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