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Published on: December 9, 2010
Epidemiologic Impact of Prioritizing Long-Acting Injectable Cabotegravir to Men Who Have Sex With Men With Low
Haoyi Wang1,2, Kai J Jonas1, David van de Vijver2
1Department of Work and Social Psychology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands; and.
Background:
Long-acting injectable cabotegravir (CAB-LA) as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), given once every 8 weeks, has been found to have superior efficacy over oral PrEP among men who have sex with men (MSM). We compared the epidemiologic impact of expanding CAB-LA to current oral PrEP users with different levels of adherence, and non-PrEP users among MSM in the Netherlands.
Methods:
An MSM HIV transmission model was calibrated to the Dutch MSM HIV epidemic. The real-world effectiveness of daily oral-PrEP was assumed to decrease by users' adherence levels: High (defined as >75% of the days covered, 93% effectiveness), medium (50%-74% covered, 69%), and low (<50% covered, 18%), respectively. CAB-LA effectiveness was assumed as 91%. CAB-LA was targeted to current oral-PrEP users by their use adherence and non-PrEP-using MSM in 2025. The epidemiologic impact of CAB-LA targeting strategies was evaluated for 5, 15, and 25 years.
Results:
Assuming 100% coverage, providing CAB-LA to MSM with low oral PrEP adherence would avert 862 (19.7%) new HIV infections among all MSM for 25 years. Expanding CAB-LA to MSM with medium/high oral PrEP adherence and non-PrEP users did not show a substantial epidemiologic impact. Moreover, our model suggested that the epidemiologic impact would decrease with a lower real-world CAB-LA effectiveness.
Conclusions:
Our model showed that CAB-LA can be an important addition to ending the HIV epidemic by 2030. To optimize the full potential of CAB-LA at the beginning stage of CAB-LA introduction, we suggest prioritizing the transition of current oral PrEP users with low adherence to CAB-LA to reduce HIV transmissions more efficiently.
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