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Gamechanger HIV injection rolls out in South Africa and Brazil
The first injection to offer long-lasting protection against HIV is being rolled out in South Africa and Brazil, as an alternative to daily medication.
UN agency UNITAID announced the groundbreaking development on Friday, which it is hoped will boost HIV prevention worldwide.
Developed by ViiV (pronounced VEEV) Healthcare and approved by the US health authority, the injection offers two months of protection against HIV. Its active ingredient is cabotegravir.
Like other HIV treatments, the anti-retroviral medication works by stopping the virus from replicating in the body, effectively reducing the viral load.
Although existing oral medication – known as “oral pre-exposure prophylaxis”, or oral PrEP - can prevent HIV in 99 per cent of cases, uptake has been slow and targets to reduce new infections have been missed.
The reasons for this include that people with HIV fear stigma, discrimination or intimate partner violence if they take the pill every day, said UNITAID spokesperson Herve Verhoosel.
“Long-acting PrEP could have a game-changing impact, improving choice and making HIV prevention a more viable option for more people,” Mr. Verhoosel told journalists in Geneva.
But he cautioned that the high cost of the injection – believed to be around $20,000 a year for wealthy nations – would be prohibitive elsewhere, so “adequate and affordable supply must be ensured so people everywhere can benefit without delay”.
In Brazil, UNITAID is supporting long-acting cabotegravir injections among transgender communities – 30 per cent of whom live with HIV - and men who have sex with men (18 per cent).
In South Africa, the target population is adolescent girls and young women, who are infected “at a disproportionately high rate”, the UN agency said.
“In sub-Saharan Africa, six in seven new HIV infections in adolescents occur among girls, and young women are twice as likely to be living with HIV as their male peers,” it noted.
In a related development on Friday, UNAIDS congratulated Zimbabwe for decriminalizing HIV transmission.
“Public health goals are not served by denying people their individual rights and I commend Zimbabwe for taking this hugely important step,” said UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima. “This decision strengthens the HIV response in Zimbabwe by reducing the stigma and discrimination that too often prevents vulnerable groups of people from receiving HIV prevention, care and treatment services.”
Ms. Byanyima’s comments followed the Zimbabwean Parliament’s decision to repeal section 79 of the Criminal Law Code on HIV transmission.
In its place President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to sign into law a new marriage bill adopted by Parliament.
According to UNAIDS, Zimbabwe has made great progress in the response to HIV over the past decade.
It is estimated that 1.2 million of the 1.3 million people living with HIV in the country are now on life-saving medicines. AIDS-related deaths have decreased by 63 per cent since 2010, with new HIV infections down by 66 per cent over the same period.
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STORY: HIV Antiviral Injection - UNITAID
TRT: 3 min 44 s
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: FRENCH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 18 March 2022 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
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As world’s water reserves change, countries must prepare for a new reality: WMO
New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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