In 2021, the United Nations set forth the goal of "ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030". To achieve this, not only must countries strengthen the diagnosis and treatment of HIV infections, but they also need to prioritize prevention to minimize the emergence of new infections. Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) long-acting regimens have become a recent focal point in HIV prevention. At the recently held 12th International AIDS Society HIV Science Conference (IAS 2023), there were several keynote lectures on the topic of long-acting PrEP. Infectious Disease Frontier had the privilege to interview Dr. Deborah Donnell from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center at the University of Washington, who shared her insights on the challenges faced in HIV prevention and the characteristics of the new long-acting PrEP regimen.

In the recent 12th International AIDS Society (IAS) HIV Science Conference (IAS 2023), a research study from South Africa found that, despite seldom adhering to antiretroviral therapy (ART), 5 male children who were born with HIV still maintained undetectable viral loads. Researchers believe that due to innate immunological gender differences, boys might have a better chance of achieving sustained virological remission than girls. In early case reports of children initiating combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), it was hypothesized that some children treated at an extremely early age could achieve viral control without requiring further interventions. To verify this hypothesis and identify potential controlling mechanisms, researchers conducted a longitudinal study in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa, monitoring 281 mother-child pairs with in utero HIV infections post-delivery.