PrEP ‘100 percent effective’ in preventing HIV, US study claims

Not a single one of the 657 participants in a two-year study into the effectiveness of HIV prevention pill PrEP contracted the virus, researchers claim.

The drug – sold under the brand name Truvada – has been on the market as a form of HIV treatment for 11 years but was only approved as a preventive product in 2012.

The research was carried out by care company Kaiser Permanente in California, whose lead researcher Dr Jonathan Volk said in a statement: “HIV prevention in 2015 is very exciting because we have several tools that are available for reducing risk, and PrEP is one of those tools.”

99% of the participants in the research were gay men, leading Volk to point out that more work needs to be done to make the pill – the full name for which is pre-exposure prophylaxis – known to transgender people and injection drug users; groups who are thought to also be at high-risk of contracting HIV. “Interest in PrEP in our experience has been lower among those groups, and we want to make sure we’re reaching all individuals who are at risk for HIV,” he said. “When you look at who is getting infected with HIV, we still have work to do.”

Participants were monitored every three months throughout the two-and-a-half-year process, and while the HIV incidence rate was zero, it is noted that other STIs – such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis – were present in around 30%.

Condom usage also dropped, leading critics to argue that regular PrEP use discourages people from practising safe sex. Volk also acknowledges that the study’s positive outcome was potentially helped by the fact it took place in San Francisco, where treatment and awareness of HIV tends to be much better than in many other areas.

Still, there can be little arguing that the findings are at least a step in the right direction.

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