Pandemic did not interrupt HIV treatment during trials assessing long-acting ART
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Study results presented at IDWeek demonstrated that the pandemic did not cause HIV treatment interruptions during the numerous global trials assessing long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine for ART.
“We know that COVID-19 has caused health care system disruptions globally,” Maggie Czarnogorski, MD, MPH, head of innovation and implementation science at ViiV Healthcare, told Healio. “It was important to us to understand how we could continue to administer our health care-administered injections, either once monthly or every 2 months, during a global pandemic.”
The analysis by Czarnogorski and colleagues included 1,744 patients taking long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine in six trials being conducted in 16 countries. They conducted a pooled analysis to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on dosing.
Overall, 93% of the patients saw no pandemic-related interruptions to their dosing schedule. Interruptions were prevented by switching participants to daily oral therapy (73%) or daily standard-of-care therapy (21%), the researchers said. Additionally, 5% of the participants rescheduled their injection visit.
Among the patients whose treatment was interrupted, 42% of interruptions were due to staffing constraints or a clinic closure, 14% were due to suspected or confirmed COVID-19, 9% were due to self-quarantine and 36% were due to other reasons, like pandemic-driven travel restrictions. A total of 91% of patients who changed to temporary oral therapy due to a pandemic-impacted visit have restarted therapy with cabotegravir and rilpivirine.
Of the patients who experienced regimen interruptions from the pandemic, 58% were from North America, 26% were from Europe, 13% were from South Africa and 3% were from Latin America.
Czarnogorski said that compiling data from six separate trials was one of the main challenges of the study.
“There is still more to learn as COVID-19 evolves,” Czarnogorski said. “At least from the first 9 months of data, it looks very promising that this is manageable, even during the worst of health care system disruptions.”
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Czarnogorski M, et al. Abstract LB-8. Presented at: IDWeek; Oct. 21-25, 2020 (virtual meeting).
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