Can we eliminate the HIV epidemic?Devin Grosvenor

It's a question that dates back to the start of the epidemic in the 1980s. With 1.3 million new infections a year, the epidemic continues … and the world is not on track to meet the ambitious U.N. goal of ending HIV/AIDS by 2030.

But 2024 has fueled increasing optimism among leading infectious disease experts after the results of two groundbreaking clinical trial results for a drug called lenacapavir showed it to be capable of virtually eliminating new HIV infections through sex.

The emerging data surrounding lenacapavir is so astonishing that the drug's development has been heralded as the 2024 Breakthrough of the Year by the journal Science,which described it as representing "a pivotal step toward diminishing HIV/AIDS as a global health crisis."