South Africa rolls out game-changing HIV shot amid funding shortfalls

Nurse Mpho Matloane prepares a syringe filled with the drug Lenacapavir which he prepares to administer to Kegoratile Aphane (left) at the Phedisong clinic in Ga-Rankuwa, north-west of Pretoria, on Dec. 2, 2025. Ihsaan Haffe/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa rolled out a new, biannual HIV prevention drug on Friday that has the potential to drastically cut infection rates, but U.S. aid cuts mean access will be limited.

Lenacapavir, a kind of Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), is injected into the stomach every six months and is basically failproof at preventing high-risk individuals from contracting the virus.

South Africa is not the first African country to introduce injectable Lenacapavir. The drug is rolling out across Africa faster than any HIV prevention option to date, and South Africa becomes the ninth country on the continent to launch it. But in a nation with the highest number of HIV cases in the world, the long-acting injection is being hailed as a potential game changer.

"The launch today of Lenacapavir marks a turning point in our nation's fight against HIV. To us, this incredible, incredible treatment is not just a medicine or a drug, to us it represents a major turning point in South Africa's national story," said South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the launch.

The rollout is beginning in 360 health facilities in high-burden districts.

South Africa, which has about 8 million people living with HIV, according to UNAIDS, has made great strides in treatment, with a majority of the population on Antiretroviral drugs. But prevention is still an issue, with about 160,000 new infections every year.

Most of those infections occur in adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 24, with about 1,000 in this demographic infected each week. Among the reasons for this are unequal relationships, sometimes transactional, that these girls and women have with older men.