Last week, the 2024 meeting of the International AIDS Society (IAS) was wrapping up as the 2024 Olympic Games were about to begin. That timing was probably what prompted the use of multiple sports analogies at Thursday’s plenary session on HIV prevention strategies. Given the decades-long attempts at developing an HIV vaccine, Peter Piot, past IAS president and director emeritus and professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in his introduction: “This is clearly a marathon. But marathons also finish.”
Integrase strand transfer inhibitors (INSTI) under a once-daily oral schedule are the standard-of-care treatment for HIV. Longer-acting oral and injectable formulations to facilitate adherence to treatment regimens are needed.
The 2024 meeting of the International AIDS Society (IAS), which is being held in Munich this week, began with the announcement of another curative bone marrow transplant. The new case brings the total number of patients cured of HIV via a bone marrow transplant up to 7 since “Berlin patient” Timothy Ray Brown became the first such person in 2007.