Introduction of Truvada
Discuss about the Introductory Health Economics for Emtricitabine and Tenofovir.
HIV is one of the major health issues in the modern day world. There are various researches that are going on in the world and they are trying to develop new kinds of ways in which HIV can be prevented and cured (Calabrese and Underhill, 2015). There is lot of investments going on in the research field so as to come with best of medicines for curing HIV AID. Since HIV attacks on the immune system hence finding medicine for it is difficult. Truvada which is a brand name for Emtricitabine/tenofovir is the first of its kind that is able to treat and prevent people that are infected from HIV AIDS. It is basically a fixed dozed combination of two antiretroviral medication namely emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil. This report highlights the way in which this medicine helps both individuals and governments. It also describes the potential downside linked with funding HIV prevention through this manner.
From very long time researchers were trying to develop new medicines that might help in the treatment of HIV AIDS. It was the year 2004, when United States approved the medical use of it and it was the first of its kind (Hosek, et. al., 2013). The WHO has included it in the list of most essential medicines. It is very effective and highly in terms of medical use. Its wholesale cost in the developing nations is around 6.06 to 7.44 USD per month while in US it is around $1415.00 per month. It was found that it reduced the incidence of HIV infection by around 42% but this is not exact as it differed from race to race as found in the study in heterosexual African Women. In a mathematical modelling it was found that daily intake of this medicine can reduce the HIV risk to around 99%. The person who takes medicine four or more times a week is able to reduce their risk by 50% to 100%.
Another study revealed that both tenofovir alone as well as in combination decreases the risk of contracting HIV by around 51%. In US, it has been approved for pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV infection. It is to be understood by the fact that this medicine does not cure HIV AIDS rather enables people to fight with the disease (Mera, et. al., 2016). It reduces the amount of virus that is present in the body by slowing down the progression of bodies. If healthy people take it then there is least chance that their cells cannot get attacked by the AIDS virus. This helps in making sure that people can easily live a social life with the patients. This is good for the society’s wellbeing.
Benefits of Truvada
Figure 2: Structure of tenofovir disoproxil
This drug is highly beneficial for the individuals because of the reasons as stated in this paragraph. There are several people who are infected from HIV AIDS and hence this medicine can reduce the chances of their death which is more common in the case of this disease (Ratcliffe, et. al., 2011). Its use also prevents people who do not use condoms while having sex and are unknown about HIV status of sex partners. It also prevents people who used the infected equipment unknowingly in the last month or so. This is a medicine that makes a person capable of fighting with this disease in the case when other medicines have failed. It is also beneficial for the people as they can enjoy their social life without being potentially threatened by any such kind of disease. It helps infected people to live their social life and doing all their activities with freedom as the HIV patients had to be very preventive till the time the disease persists (Fauci, Folkers and Dieffenbach, 2013). This is because if the healthy people take it, there is no chance that it may create problems for them. Patients suffering from HIV will not have to lead an isolated life as normal people have the fear that they will get affected by the HIV patients. It also helps in saving of the marriage life as otherwise the other partners feels an excessive burden on himself.
It has empowered the people living in the society to take care of them even while being in the place where there are larger numbers of infected people. This can be extremely good for the people who are working at the care homes where the HIV positive patients are kept. Previously the employees of this care homes were extremely conscious while dealing with the patients and hence a proper care may not be given to the patients having AIDS. In the same way it has also empowered the families who have one patient in them as they do not have to deal with extra care while they are living with them (Heneine and Kashuba, 2012). Families also do not have to send the patients to care homes so that accidently do not share the disease. For example if the patient gets any kind of cuts they can share any kind of fluids with other person. This has a relatively lower chance but still families are highly concerned about this and they send them to care settings (Krakower, et. al., 2014). With the use of Truvana families will feel that they can live with patients also without taking over cautions.
Benefits for Government
It does not only benefit the people rather it benefitted other stakeholders like Government. This can be understood by the facts stated. The government had to invest a lot in the curing and preventing people from this disease. There are lot of knowledge development programs that are run by government but most of them go in vein as the social point of view regarding this disease is unable to change (Auerbach, et. al., 2015). Even after the advertisements like we can lead a normal social life with patients as well as eating or sitting with them does not actually makes them infected. It is also beneficial for the government as they do not have to think regarding finding cures for the person. Governments also had to spend a huge amount of money on building the infrastructure for the patients who are poor so that they live in care settings and does not get infected by some other disease (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2012). The most important benefit that Truvada gives to government is that it helps in improving the health related index of the nation or in other words it helps in increasing the health economics of the nation which is extremely necessary for the image build-up of the nation. The increasing health economics always helps the in improving the condition of families living in the nation (Flash, et. al., 2014). This can be understood by the fact that developing countries have adopted this medicine so as to provide treatment to all the patients that are living in the nation. It is also to be understood that it helps the government organisations to carry on the research so that they can experiment on various other aspects related to the disease. It will help in the development of certain new kinds of medicines. In the rural areas of the developing nation do not have the good health infrastructure hence this medicine helps the government to cure the public.
There are many people, organisations and governments that is funding for the cause of finding HIV AIDS. For finding this solution there are many researches are going on. With the development of such kinds of medicine which is not even 100% effective for curing the HIV, there will be downside in terms of funding that is done for finding ways regarding HIV protection. This can be understood by the fact that there was huge number of organisations who were supporting the research related to finding cure for the HIV as a disease.
Potential downside associated with funding HIV prevention
Since the funding of the developing nations after the development of this medicine was towards the making of this medicine and distributing it to all the people rather than developing new kinds of medicine. Previously the funding was towards the development of new techniques to protect people from any kind of disease (Grov, et. al., 2015). This has also reduced the chances that any better medicines could develop. It is to be understood by the fact that companies which were putting efforts towards the development of new techniques basically shifted towards finding the potential drawbacks and advantages of Truvana. In many ways it is also to be noticed that the exporters or venture capitalist are thinking about the development of business rather than finding a better solution (Cohen, et. al., 2013). In the community’s fight towards eliminating this disease from the society, this is a serious setback.
Conclusion
From the above based report it can be concluded that HIV AIDS is a highly dangerous disease. There are no medicines that are made for fighting with this disease. Truvana is the first of its kind which has given potential to reduce the risk of having AIDS by around 50% to 90%. This is extremely beneficial for the people who are not affected by this disease and cannot leave the person who are affected like in the case of family members and care setting employees. It is also beneficial for the government as they can use it for improving the health economics of their nation. With the development of this medicine there is downside noticed in the funding by several organisations and individuals.
References
Auerbach, J.D., Kinsky, S., Brown, G. and Charles, V., (2015) Knowledge, attitudes, and likelihood of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use among US women at risk of acquiring HIV. AIDS patient care and STDs, 29(2), pp.102-110.
Calabrese, S.K. and Underhill, K., (2015) How stigma surrounding the use of HIV preexposure prophylaxis undermines prevention and pleasure: a call to destigmatize “Truvada Whores”. American journal of public health, 105(10), pp.1960-1964.
Cohen, M.S., Smith, M.K., Muessig, K.E., Hallett, T.B., Powers, K.A. and Kashuba, A.D., (2013) Antiretroviral treatment of HIV-1 prevents transmission of HIV-1: where do we go from here?. The Lancet, 382(9903), pp.1515-1524.
Fauci, A.S., Folkers, G.K. and Dieffenbach, C.W., (2013) HIV-AIDS: much accomplished, much to do. Nature immunology, 14(11), p.1104.
Flash, C., Landovitz, R., Mera Giler, R., Ng, L., Magnuson, D., Bush Wooley, S. and Rawlings, K., (2014) Two years of Truvada for pre?exposure prophylaxis utilization in the US. Journal of the International AIDS Society, 17(4S3).
Grov, C., Whitfield, T.H., Rendina, H.J., Ventuneac, A. and Parsons, J.T., (2015) Willingness to take PrEP and potential for risk compensation among highly sexually active gay and bisexual men. AIDS and Behavior, 19(12), pp.2234-2244.
Heneine, W. and Kashuba, A., (2012) HIV prevention by oral preexposure prophylaxis. Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in medicine, 2(3), p.a007419.
Hosek, S., Siberry, G., Bell, M., Lally, M., Kapogiannis, B., Green, K., Fernandez, M.I., Rutledge, B., Martinez, J., Garofalo, R. and Wilson, C., (2013) Project PrEPare (ATN082): The acceptability and feasibility of an HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) trial with young men who have sex with men (YMSM). Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999), 62(4).
Krakower, D., Ware, N., Mitty, J.A., Maloney, K. and Mayer, K.H., (2014) HIV providers’ perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing pre-exposure prophylaxis in care settings: a qualitative study. AIDS and Behavior, 18(9), pp.1712-1721.
Mera, R., McCallister, S., Palmer, B., Mayer, G., Magnuson, D. and Rawlings, K., (2016) FTC/TDF (Truvada) for HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) utilization in the United States: 2012–2015. AIDS.
Ratcliffe, L., Beadsworth, M.B., Pennell, A., Phillips, M. and Vilar, F.J., (2011) Managing hepatitis B/HIV co-infected: adding entecavir to truvada (tenofovir disoproxil/emtricitabine) experienced patients. Aids, 25(8), pp.1051-1056.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, (2012) FDA approves first drug for reducing the risk of sexually acquired HIV infection [Online]. Available at: https://aidsinfo.nih.gov/news/1254/fda-approves-first-drug-for-reducing-the-risk-of-sexually-acquired-hiv-infection
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