In the study, a large and carefully-designed trial, injections every two months of cabotegravir stopped seven out 10 (69 per cent) more HIV infections than what has been up till now, state-of-the-art PrEP, namely a daily dose of the pill formerly known as Truvada.

The strategy of uninfected people taking drugs to ward off HIV, known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), earned Kenya’s Ministry of Health’s blessing in 2016 when it included oral PrEP in its antiretroviral therapy (ART) guidelines for people at substantial risk of HIV infection.

“It’s really exciting,” Jared Baeten, an epidemiologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, who was not involved in the NIAID trial but conducted a landmark PrEP study of anti-HIV pills (one was Truvada) in Kenya and Uganda told Science Magazine.

The HPTN 084 trials, however, are mainly focused on showing whether the cabotegravir (CAB) jab can prevent HIV infection among uninfected women.

The HPTN 084 which is expected to end next year is the first large-scale clinical trial of an injectable medication for HIV prevention in sexually active women aged 18 to 45 years meant to examine the safety and effectiveness of the injectable drug compared to the daily oral PrEP pills.