The National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has announced that Nigeria will take delivery of Lenacapavir, a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug that has shown 100% effectiveness in preventing HIV infection in clinical trials.
The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control has granted the agency regulatory permission, according to a brief statement issued Monday by Toyin Aderibigbe, head of public relations at NACA.
Compared to daily oral preventive medications, lenacapavir is a more convenient injectable treatment that is given twice a year.
Thanks to voluntary licensing agreements with generic manufacturers, the medication is anticipated to be accessible in Nigeria and 119 other low- and middle-income countries for a reasonable annual cost of $40 per person.
“The Government of Nigeria is advancing preparations for the introduction and rollout of lenacapavir as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
“This is part of the government’s commitment to strengthen HIV prevention and accelerate progress toward epidemic control,” the statement read.
The completion of landscape and preparedness evaluations in 10 states—Akwa Ibom, Anambra, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, FCT, Gombe, Kano, Kwara, and Lagos—as well as regulatory approval by NAFDAC, were among the noteworthy accomplishments that NACA cited.
“The commodities are expected in the country in March 2026,” NACA noted.
Nigeria has approximately 1.9 million people living with HIV, with a national prevalence of 1.3% among adults aged 15-49 years.
In 2021, the nation saw 51,000 AIDS-related fatalities and 74,000 new HIV infections.
Women between the ages of 15 and 49 are more than twice as likely as men to be living with HIV, and the South-South zone has the highest HIV prevalence at 3.1%.
