Karla Torres, senior medical liaison for ViiV Healthcare
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
Taffet@DallasVoice.com
Karla Torres, senior medical liaison for ViiV Healthcare, said her company’s mission is to “Leave No One Behind.”
ViiV is the only drug company whose only focus is on HIV medication, she said, explaining why the company was the lead sponsor of the National Latinx Conference on HIV, held earlier this week at the Omni Hotel in downtown Dallas.
The NaLa Conference’s goal was to provide healthcare and service providers with “innovative concepts, best practices and new information” on how to better serve Hispanic communities in preventing and treating HIV, according to organizers.
Torres said one of the biggest hurdles in fighting HIV in the Hispanic community is stigma.
While all communities still suffer from stigma for a variety of reasons, in the Hispanic community family expectations, religion, language barriers and immigration status create additional barriers to treatment and candid discussions around sexual health.
And HIV infection rates among both the gay and straight population in the Hispanic community remain high. Nationally, Hispanics make up only 19 percent of the U.S. population, but they account for 33 percent of all HIV diagnoses over the past five years.
In Texas, 40 percent of the population is Hispanic, but the group accounts for 54 percent of new HIV infections.
Torres added that MSMs — men who have sex with men — account for 87 percent of all new diagnoses. She said among Hispanics, MSMs include a large number of men who don’t identify as gay. And reaching that population for prevention, testing and treatment offers additional challenges, she said.
that is used for PrEP
Torres said how we relate to our healthcare providers makes a difference in health outcomes.
If language is a problem, the patient isn’t likely to begin a discussion on sexual health or testing.
If the patient is worried about immigration status and is afraid of encountering ICE in public settings, they are less likely to seek medical attention especially in a clinic setting like Parkland.
But Torres is especially encouraged by successful new treatments that have become available over the last year.
Apretude is an injectable medication that is used for PrEP, while Cabenuva is an injection that replaces pills for treatment of HIV. Both have proven to be quite effective.
They are especially effective among those who have problems taking pills daily, since taking medications as prescribed and on schedule plays an important part in maintaining a status of undetectable and preventing the spread of the virus.
The current injectables need to be taken once every two months.
“According to a Q4 earnings call, ViiV Healthcare is on track to file in 2027 and launch in 2028 for Q4M dosing,” a company spokesman said in an email.
What that means is that, in 2028, ViiV plans to offer a new injectable that will work for four months instead of the current two-month regimen. Going to a doctor just three times a year makes compliance even easier than going six times a year.
“It’s an exciting time with so many options to protect ourselves from HIV,” Torres said.
But if an injection protects you from contracting the HIV virus, is Apretude a vaccine?
No, Torres said, explaining that a vaccine creates antibodies in the immune system, and that’s not how this injectable works. Instead, Apretude works as a medication, treating the disease rather than preventing it.
The NaLa Conference targeted healthcare and social service providers with innovative concepts, best practices and new information.
“We want providers to know what’s available,” Torres said. “But we need the community to have more health literacy.”
She stressed the importance of testing, adding that she would like to see everyone from age 16 to age 65 get tested at least once. That would be a big step in stopping the spread of the virus.
In the last session of the Texas Legislature, state Rep. Venton Jones introduced a bill that would include HIV testing when any STD testing is done in the state. The bill passed the House but died in the Senate.
Leave no one behind is what Torres said her company believes. With this work on Apretude and other treatments, she said, “We’re living our mission.