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VIDEO: Chris Beyrer, MD, details what clinicians need to know to improve PrEP success
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With established evidence supporting the success of pre-exposure prophylaxis in preventing the spread of HIV, president of the International AIDS Society Chris Beyrer, MD, offers insight on various aspects of treatment that are essential for its efficacy.
“PREP really works — if people use it,” Beyer said. “The real world effectiveness is even better than what we’ve seen in the earlier [randomized controlled trials].”
Beyrer, the professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and co-director at Johns Hopkins Center for AIDS Research, details the characteristics of the populations most likely to benefit from PrEP, from age to risk level, and underscores early HIV screening, diagnosis and pace of initiation as key components in achieving positive outcomes.
Although frank discussions with patients on the likelihood of HIV acquisition and potential benefit from preventive therapy is key, Beyrer acknowledges the hurdles to overcome in both locating patients at high-risk and tackling the topic of sexual activity.
“We need to get PrEP out there in primary care, in adolescent medicine, in adult internal medicine, in STI clinics, in drug treatment programs, in a much wider array of clinical venues,” he said. “There’s even less capacity … in many of those clinical settings with speaking honestly with people about their sexual orientation, their sexual behaviors and practices.”