From the Los Angeles Times:
California will test an HIV-prevention pill in an attempt to slow the spread of the disease in the state, researchers announced Tuesday.
The pill, which is already used to treat HIV patients, will be prescribed to 700 gay and bisexual men and transgender women in Los Angeles, San Diego and Long Beach who are high-risk but not infected.
“With this new prevention pill, we have another intervention to put in the arsenal to try and impact this epidemic,” said George Lemp, director of the California HIV/AIDS Research Program with the UC president’s office.
The program awarded $11.8 million in state grants for the prevention pill studies and efforts to get about 3,000 HIV-infected people in Southern California into treatment and keep them there. The grants will go to a group of UC schools, local governments and AIDS organizations.
There are an estimated 140,000 people living with HIV or AIDS in California, including about 30,000 who don’t know they are infected, Lemp said.
The pill, under the brand name of Truvada, is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating HIV but not for prophylactic use. In 2010, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine said that it reduced the risk of contracting HIV by 44% to 73%, depending on how often participants took their medication.
Read the full article on the LA Times website.
HIV Prevention and Care Project 