PrEP Access and Coverage Act reintroduced in Congress

qvoicenews.com:

Truvada, or PrEP, is a medication that can reduce HIV infection by more than 90 percent. Health officials consider it an important HIV prevention tool.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have collaborated to reintroduce the PrEP Access and Coverage Act of 2023 to help reduce HIV.

Photo: Gilead Sciences. Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have collaborated to reintroduce the PrEP Access and Coverage Act of 2023 to help reduce HIV.

Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith and California Rep. Adam Schiff authored the bills that were introduced on Tuesday. Initially introduced by then-Senator Kamala Harris, the updated bills would provide zero-cost sharing coverage of PrEP to private and public payers and establish a national grant program that provides PrEP to the uninsured. “Passage of (the PrEP Access and Coverage Act) will greatly expand access to PrEP for people who have health coverage across all payers and create a national PrEP program that includes community and provider outreach as well as PrEP drugs and associated services for the uninsured,” executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute Carl Schmid said in a statement. “We must address head-on the wide disparities in PrEP use, and these bills do that.” Even though improving PrEP use is a pillar of the Biden administration’s plan to end HIV, less than 30 percent of people who could benefit from PrEP take it, and significant disparities exist, according to data from AIDSVU.