A new study conducted at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center has further investigated the efficiency of the drug in a high-risk population. In an investigation that ran for a total duration 32 months, 657 individuals volunteered, the majority being homosexual men who had sex with other men. The study subjects were prescribed PrEP for daily use, once a day.
The participants were checked for baseline HIV as well as other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) at the beginning of the study and every three months thereafter, till end of the study period. A survey was also conducted to ascertain sexual behavior of the study subjects.
The results of the study were as follow:
The lead author of the study, Dr. Jonathan Volk, says (as reported by Huffington Post), "What our study shows very reassuringly is that PrEP works in a real world setting. 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."
Although the study is promising and reiterates earlier findings on PrEP, it also raises several questions. Some of them are:
Ongoing clinical trials to test the efficacy of PrEP in heterosexual individuals, in women and young adults should provide answers for many questions. In the mean time, the findings of this study are reassuring, to say the least.
Written by Mangala Sarkar, Ph.D.
Primary References
Volk, J., Marcus, J., Phengrasamy, T., Blechinger, D., Nguyen, D., Follansbee, S., & Hare, C. (2015). No New HIV Infections with Increasing Use of HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis in a Clinical Practice Setting. Clinical Infectious Diseases. doi: 10.1093/cid/civ778
Truvada Protected 100 Percent Of Study Participants From HIV. (n.d.). Retrieved September 8, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/truvada-protected-study-participants-from-hiv_55e9f596e4b002d5c07607a5
Additional References
FDA Approves First Medication to Reduce HIV Risk. (n.d.). Retrieved September 8, 2015, from http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm311821.htm
(2015, August 26). Retrieved September 8, 2015, from http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/prevention/research/prep/index.html
Search Results. (n.d.). Retrieved September 8, 2015, from https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Truvada&Search=Search
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