DEFINITION

• Preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is the use of antiretroviral drugs by HIV-negative individuals to prevent acquisition of HIV.
  
  • Treatment options are based on the type of exposure, such as sex or injection drug use, and recommended for pregnant and breastfeeding women.[3]
• PrEP medications include: fixed-dose combination oral pills (TDF/FTC, Truvada® and TAF/FTC, Descovy®) and long-acting injectables (CAB, Apretude® and LEN, Yeztugo®).
  • Many studies demonstrate the high efficacy and safety of oral PrEP.[11][10][9][7]
    • For oral PrEP, the level of adherence determines the amount of risk reduction.
  • Recent studies show excellent efficacy and safety of long-acting CAB[21][20] and LEN.[17][15]
• Combining the strategies of PrEP and treatment as prevention (TasP) may reduce the number of incident HIV infections and allow the end of the HIV epidemic.
  • TasP studies demonstrate that individuals who are virally suppressed cannot transmit HIV.[8]
• U=U, undetectable = untransmittable, is a stigma-reduction strategy and global health campaign that states a person living with HIV treated with ART and maintaining an undetectable viral load has zero risk of transmitting HIV to their sexual partners.
• Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) is an emergency short-course (28 days) of ART started within 72 hours after a possible exposure to HIV to prevent infection.[1]
• Condoms reduce the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
• A serostatus-neutral approach to HIV testing is recommended to reduce stigma and allow rapid linkage to care for either ART or PrEP.