Partly due to the research described in Hylke Waalewijn’s thesis, dolutegravir is now the drug of choice for children over 4 weeks of age. She received her Ph.D. from Radboud University on October 28th.
During his pharmacy studies, Waalewijn did an internship in Kenya and Curaçao. In Kenya, the semen was planned for the topic of his doctoral research: Pharmacokinetics and availability of HIV drugs in children.
Today, HIV is a treatable disease thanks to the availability of safe and effective drugs. These medicines are less easy for children to obtain because research on the use of these medicines in children is lagging behind.
The research described in the thesis helps make HIV drugs available to children. Studies on the pharmacokinetics of dolutegravir in children weighing 3 to 20 kilograms and in older children in whom dolutegravir was combined with rifampicin have shown that this drug can be used safely and effectively in these children.
In addition, the safety and efficacy of tenofovir alafenamide in combination with other HIV medicines have been demonstrated in children weighing more than 14 kilograms. The possibility of combining tenofovir alafenamide with emtricitabine and dolutegravir for use in children was anticipated by the simulations.
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