Brazil gov't to provide new anti-HIV drug in 2017

Brazil's Health Ministry announced it will offer antiretroviral drug dolutegravir to approximately 100 thousand HIV patients in Brazil. The statement was made today (Sep. 28). The medication is expected to start being distributed to public hospitals in 2017.

At first, dolutegravir will be provided under SUS, Brazil's national network of public hospitals, to patients beginning their treatment and those who have showed resistance against older antiretroviral drugs.

According to official information, the medicine will be included under the new Clinical Protocol and Therapeutic Guidelines for the Management of HIV Infection, to be revised this year.

What's new

Today, at its early stage, HIV treatment in Brazil includes  tenofovir, lamivudina, and efavirenz, known as three-in-one. Starting in 2017, efavirenz will be recommended in place of dolutegravir in the combination with tenofovir and lamivudina.

The decisive factor in the change was dolutegravir's low level of adverse effects, said Adele Benzaken, Coordinator for STDs, AIDS, and Hepatitis.

Money saved

As part of its negotiations with the pharmaceutical industry, the Brazilian government was able to cut the price of dolutegravir by 70 percent, from $5.10 to $1.50, according to the ministry. Ricardo Barros, Brazil's health minister, said the decision does not change the budget earmarked for the ministry. “We're doing the best treatment in the world for the lowest price,” Barros stated.

Georgiana Braga, director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), described the move as a historic moment for Brazilians with HIV, and said the negotiation should benefit other countries in the region and the world, so that the drug may be made available in their public hospitals.

An overview

In Brazil, 798,366 cases of AIDS were reported from 1980 to June, 2015. Between 2010 and 2014, new cases averaged 40.6 thousand a year.

The mortality rate, in turn, saw a reduction of 10.9% from 2003 to 2014, going from a yearly 6.4 deaths for every 100 thousand inhabitants to 5.7.

Translated by Fabrício Ferreira