Here's Why Anti-HIV Drugs May Not Be Reaching Those Most At Risk

Only a small proportion of gay and bisexual men who could have taken a daily pill to reduce their risk of HIV actually did so in 2014, according to a new study. Furthermore, young gay and bisexual men and those of color, who are among the groups most at risk for infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), were less likely to be taking the medication than their older and white counterparts. Unequal use of the drug, called Truvada, may worsen the disparities between races in HIV rates, said lead author Henry Raymond, of the San Francisco Department of Public Health. “We don’t want to leave anyone behind,” he told Reuters Health. Truvada, manufactured by Gilead, is a combination of two antiretroviral drugs that work to keep HIV, which causes AIDS, from replicating in the body. Approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012, Truvada is often just referred to as PrEP, which stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis. Gay and bisexual men who regularly take Truvada reduce their risk of HIV by 90 percent, according the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For the new study, reported in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, Raymond’s team analyzed data from 411 gay and bisexual men living in San Francisco in 2014. About three-fourths of the men said they were HIV-negative - and of those, 64 percent met one of the CDC’s criteria for Truvada use. Those criteria are having an HIV-positive partner, not being in a monog...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news