As South Africa prepares to roll out lenacapavir a twice-yearly HIV prevention injection at 360 government clinics, another jab, CAB-LA, has made a quiet exit.
CAB-LA stalled mainly because of cost: at roughly 180 R2 900per person per year, it is about four times more expensive than generic lenacapavir, and a Pepfar donation that could have changed the picture was frozen by the Trump administrations 2025 aid stop-work orders before a single dose arrived.
But advocates say the training, systems and real-world data built around CAB-LA were not wasted they now form the foundation on which lenacapavirs roll-out will be built.
Intodays newsletter, Ida Jooste and Tanya Pampalone ask what happened to CAB-LA.Sign up for our newsletter today.
In 2026, as South Africa prepares to introduce lenacapavir, another HIV-prevention injection is fading from view: long-acting cabotegravir, known as CAB-LA in short.
Both lenacapavir and CAB-LA consist of antiretroviral medication that prevent HIV-negative people from getting infected with HIV through sex, but the former is taken once every six months and the latter once every two months.
