Friday 13 May 2016

PrEP can help us end HIV


It’s not often that a drug’s product information sheet would be cause for excitement, let alone celebration, writes AFAO Executive Director Darryl O'Donell. 

Yet just as experts met in Sydney on 6 May to discuss HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, Australia’s drug regulator quietly changed the product sheet for the drug Truvada to approve its use to prevent HIV.

This change by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration means that doctors can now write a script for Truvada and it can be dispensed at a chemist. This is groundbreaking because it means Australia’s drug technocrats have said that Truvada is safe, and that it works in preventing sexual transmission of HIV.