HIV Prevention: Last News

study has found that lenacapavir, an injectable medication administered twice a year, is more effective at preventing HIV among gay, bisexual, and transgender people than a daily regimen of Truvada, taken orally, as a form of pre-exposure prophylaxis.The study examined cisgender men, transgender men and women, and nonbinary individuals who have sex with partners assigned male at birth.

report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The CDC estimates that there were about 32,000 new HIV infections in 2021, representing a 12% drop from 2017.During that same timeframe, annual infections were reduced by more than twice as much — dropping 34% — among gay and bisexual men aged 13 to 24.The decrease in infections among that subgroup accounted for more than half of the overall drop in new infections.The decrease in new HIV infections was more prominent among young white gay and bisexual men, compared to their Black and Hispanic peers — underscoring continued disparities among various racial groups in prevention and treatment.Much of the decrease appears to be attributed to increased use of pre-exposure prophylaxis — PrEP, a daily pill that can prevent transmission of HIV.PrEP increased from being used by 13% of those eligible for it in 2017 to 30% of those eligible for it in 2021. However, the majority of that increase was driven by white people who were eligible for PrEP due to their sexual behavior, 78% of whom were written a prescription for the daily medicine in 2021, compared to only 11% of eligible Black people and 20.5% of eligible Latinos.The CDC estimates that about 1.2 million people in the United States have HIV, but about 1 in 8 are unaware of their status, usually due to reticence around getting tested or lack of access to health care services.Awareness of one’s status is especially low among young people, who represented about 15% of total new infections in 2021, reports CNN.