HIV cure, symptoms & treatment: Stibild shows improved safety and efficacy among women

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HIV drug Stribild has shown to be effective, safe and has a higher rate of immunovirus suppression.

According to the results of the Women's Antiretroviral Efficacy and Safety Study (WAVES) trial on Stribild, the first of its kind to exclusively enroll women, the drug showed improved safety and efficacy compared to other drugs in phase 3.

"The optimal selection of HIV treatment should be evidence-based and WAVES provides clinical safety and efficacy data to assist women and their clinicians in the informed selection of antiretroviral treatment regimens," said Dr. Sally Hodder, lead author and Director of the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute, via Medical News Today.

The findings of the study were presented at American Society for Microbiology's 55th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC/ICC). As to why the Stribild drug was exclusively given to women during the trial, Dr. Hodder explains that women are "underrepresented."

"Women account for half of the global HIV epidemic and the number of new infections continues to rise," she said. "As a consequence, current HIV treatment guidelines are based on data obtained primarily from men, but subsequently generalized and applied to both men and women."

According to News Medical, the trial involved more than 500 women diagnosed with HIV-1 from Asia, Africa, Northern America, Europe and Latin America. The women were all above 18 and nearly half of them were of African-American descent. The women either received Stribild or ritonavir-boosted atazanavir plus Truvada. Those who received Stribild had a higher HIV suppression rate. Women from Uganda were known to have the highest response rate while American women have the lowest.

Additionally, MD Peer Exchange reports those who received Truvada plus ritonavir-boosted atazanavir had cases of developing jaundice, rash and adverse effects in the liver. There were also three women that developed a mutation that wasn't in the group that received Stribild.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that there are more than 1.2 million Americans that are HIV positive and almost 13% percent are unaware that they are infected. People who are gay, bisexual or men who have intercourse with other men are the most at risk group and African-American males have the most serious type of HIV. Meanwhile, according to the data by the World Health Organization, there are 35 million people living with HIV or AIDS in the world, including the U.S. In 2013, 1.5 million people worldwide died from the disease. Sub-Saharan Africa has the most cases of HIV.