About LATA

Background:

Over 2 million adolescents aged 10-19 years are living with HIV, the majority in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Current treatment recommendations are to take life-long, daily oral antiretroviral therapy (ART). While this is very successful in older people, the same is not true for adolescents and young people, who have much higher rates of dropping out of healthcare, and higher mortality from HIV. In SSA, it is clear that there is a need for novel ART strategies to improve quality-of-life, engagement in care and treatment adherence for the large numbers of HIV-positive children who were infected at birth and are now entering adolescence, and for adolescents newly-infected through sexual transmission.

What is the study about?

There is now a new way of taking HIV medicines in the form of two injections called long-acting injectables, which must be given every 8 weeks in the clinic. In LATA, we will investigate whether taking these long-acting injectable medicines works just as well as taking oral HIV medicines every day for young HIV-positive people aged 12-19 years.

We need 460 young people living with HIV-1 from Kenya, South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe to be part of the LATA trial. Participants will be randomised, with an equal chance that they will either go into the long-acting injectable group or get a daily ART tablet by mouth.

The two randomised groups are:

• Long-Acting (LA) Injectable Group: In this group, long-acting injectables called cabotegravir (CAB) and rilpivirine (RPV) will be given every 8 weeks for at least 96 weeks.

• Continuous Therapy (CT) Control Group: this group will continue to take their HIV medicines every day by mouth. To join the trial, some participants might have to change some of their oral medications, as the combination being used in LATA is TLD. TLD is dolutegravir and tenofovir, plus either lamivudine or emtricitabine, as a single tablet taken once a day.