China has approved a new anti-HIV drug

Beijing. June 7. Silkroadnews - The China Food and Drug Administration has approved the domestically developed, long-acting injectable HIV drug, the Global Times reported.
It is the world’s first long-acting injectable drug for the treatment of HIV.
Developed by the Nanjing-based Frontier Biotechnologies Inc., the drug can block the fusion of viruses with host cell membranes, interrupting the life cycle of HIV at an early stage.
The drug is a fusion inhibitor that should be used with antiretroviral drugs to treat people suffering from HIV who have received antiviral therapy.
“China’s first domestically developed drug offers new HIV patients a new treatment option. We hope to dispel the fact that China has not developed good anti-AIDS medicine,” the agency quoted saying by Xie Dong, chief scientist and former head of Frontier Biotechnologies Inc.
Reportedly, 718,270 people suffer from HIV/AIDS in China. As of the end of June 2017, 221,628 people died of AIDS-related disease.