World Health Organization Is Positive About PrEP

I called him — and the AHF — out on it just yesterday. The “him” would full time Michael Weinstein who has appointed himself the world wide condom Czar and the Obie One Kanobe of everyone’s sex lives.

One of Michael Weinstein’s most dangerous actions was brazenly stigmatizing PrRP/Truvada by pronouncing it a “party drug” and “public health disaster in the making.” While yes, he is entitled to his opinion of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP’s formal name) neither he nor the AHF are entitles to distort the facts. Some of the AHF literature on the subject claimed PrEP is only 50 percent effective in risk reduction when studies have shown the figure was more like 90%.

While this will fall on the undoubtedly deaf ears of Michael Weinstein, the World Health Organization (WHO) today released their new H.I.V. treatment and prevention guidelines:

Anyone infected with HIV should begin antiretroviral treatment as soon after diagnosis as possible,

WHO now also recommends that people at “substantial” risk of HIV should be offered preventive antiretroviral treatment.

Based on the new recommendations, the number of people eligible for antiretroviral treatment increases from 28 million to all 37 million people who currently live with HIV globally. Expanding access to treatment is at the heart of a new set of targets for 2020 with the aim to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. ~World Health Organization

“Advocates around the world welcomed the new guidelines — usually without addressing the cost. H.I.V. specialists generally agree that since no vaccine is on the horizon — and since the long-touted “ABC” strategy of abstinence, being faithful and condoms has not stemmed the epidemic — the best hope is to offer a combination of treatment and prophylaxis,” adds the New York Times, “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advocated that combination for several years now, and some cities that have poured money into putting it into effect — including San Francisco and Vancouver, British Columbia — have seen their epidemics shrink rapidly.”

Tags: AHF, AIDS, HIV, michael weinstein, PrEP, Truvada