HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is the strategy of administering antiretrovirals to HIV uninfected, at-risk individuals in order to prevent HIV infection. Tenofovir-emtricitabine (Truvada) was approved for HIV PrEP by the FDA in 2012 and is over 90% effective in preventing HIV infection when taken as directed.
UNMC’s HIV clinic has been offering HIV PrEP for a few years and demand is steadily increasing, but patients often arrive too late. Recently, we saw a patient with newly diagnosed HIV who had unsuccessfully tried to obtain PrEP from his primary care provider just months before his diagnosis.
Although no single intervention is going to end the HIV epidemic, we have a chance at changing the course of the epidemic and significantly reducing the number of new HIV infections with PrEP.
Providers from UNMC’s HIV team are eager to teach others how to prescribe and monitor patients on PrEP and partnered with University of Nebraska Omaha, the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and the Nebraska AIDS Project to provide educational seminars across the state in the months of May and June.
Did you miss the seminars? Find additional resource to learn about PrEP here and here. Look for mini modules to update your HIV knowledge in general? Try these!
Content courtesy of Dr. Bares and Sara Weber. Learn more about the UNMC HIV clinic here.