February 22, 2019

Scaling-up PrEP Delivery in Sub-Saharan Africa: What Can We Learn from the Scale-up of ART?

Authors:

Gabrielle O’Malley, Gena Barnabee, & Kenneth Mugwanya

University of Washington affiliated authors are displayed in bold.

Published: February 2019

Read the full text open access from subscription journal Current HIV/AIDS Reports

Abstract:

Purpose of Review

Clinical trials have found that PrEP is highly effective in reducing risk of HIV acquisition across types of exposure, gender, PrEP regimens, and dosing schemes. Evidence is urgently needed to inform scale-up of PrEP to meet the ambitious WHO/UNAIDS prevention target of 3,000,000 individuals on PrEP by 2020.

Recent Findings

Successful models of delivering HIV services at scale evolved from years of formal research and programmatic evidence. These efforts produced lessons-learned relevant for scaling-up PrEP delivery, including the importance of streamlining laboratory tests, expanding prescription and management authority, differentiating medication access points, and reducing stigma and barriers of parental consent for PrEP uptake. Further research is especially needed in areas differentiating PrEP from ART delivery, including repeat HIV testing to ensure HIV negative status and defining and measuring prevention-effective adherence.

Summary

Evidence from 15 years of ART scale-up could immediately inform a public health approach to PrEP delivery.

**This abstract is posted with permission under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License**