On-Demand PrEP Use Recognized As Effective

Truvada is the only FDA-approved drug to be used as PrEP, an HIV prevention strategy that when taken as prescribed makes it virtually impossible to contract HIV. The single tablet regimen has shown to be incredibly effective since being approved as PrEP in 2012. 

Now, The International Antiviral Society-USA, an orgnization comprised of respected HIV physicians, has recognized that taking the drug prior to a sexual encounter is just as effective. 

The IAS-USA (not to be confused with IAS, the International AIDS Society) recommend that PrEP should be offered to any member of a population whose HIV incidence in the absence of PrEP is over 2 percent a year, according to NAM AIDS Map, as well as to any HIV-negative partner of an HIV-positive person who is not consistently virally suppressed. 

The physicians also say that a request to start PrEP should be an opportunity to discuss sexual risk in general. In cases where people are clearly at high HIV risk, PrEP may be started on the same day as an HIV rapid test without confirmatory HIV testing, or kidney function and hepatitis B results.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has so far not changed its 2015 recommendation that PrEP should be taken daily – though they do acknowledge that people may stop and restart PrEP according to 'seasons of risk'.

Contrastingly, France has maintained since 2015 that "event based" PrEP was effective – at least on men – although it appears women need to be on a regular regimen of the drug for it to be as effective.

“Advocacy,” the physicians further state, “should go beyond access to ART and include access to mental health and substance abuse services, as well as efforts to end policies such as HIV criminalization that impede the ability to provide evidence-based care and prevention services.”