FDA Advisory Panel Recommends Truvada for PrEP

Thursday, May 10, the antiviral drug advisory committee at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) discussed expanding the use of the antiretroviral drug Truvada to include pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to help prevent HIV-negative people from acquiring HIV. The committee, in fact, recommended that the FDA approve Truvada for PrEP to reduce the risk of sexually acquired HIV-1 infection.

While many questions remain about Truvada's use among uninfected people--from concerns about whether people will replace condoms with PrEP (optimally they should be used together), to worries about increased drug resistance, to concerns about side effects--this milestone brings us one step closer to adding PrEP to the arsenal of tools in our HIV-prevention tool kit.

HIV/AIDS is a disease that disproportionately affects and infects poor and other marginalized people. PrEP offers people who cannot or will not use condoms an opportunity to protect themselves and, as a result, others. The importance of this biomedical intervention cannot be underestimated as another tool to our prevention toolkit that will help us bring the HIV/AIDS epidemic to an end.