Following the news that came out overnight from the HIV Research for Prevention conference in Chicago of the second case involving a patient who contracted a multi-drug resistant form of the virus despite adherence to PrEP, ACON CEO Nicolas Parkhill has issued the following statement:

“We remain very confident that PrEP provides extremely high levels of prevention benefit for individuals. This is the second recorded case of HIV transmission occurring when someone is adherent to their medication. There have been clinical trials with almost 10,000 people and tens of thousands more now taking it through their doctors in the US, thousands within Australia and in other places around the world. No HIV prevention tool is perfect, including both condoms and PrEP, and so each individual must weigh up the relative risks of different approaches,”

“The research indicates that PrEP is more than 99% effective in reducing the risk of acquiring HIV, placing it around the top of the pile of HIV prevention approaches. This second case announced overnight in Chicago mirrors the circumstances of the first in February, where the patient was infected with a multi-drug resistant form of the virus. Resistance to both TDF and FTC (the two drugs in PrEP) remain exceedingly rare, and testing of resistance to particular drugs will continue to occur in Australia as PrEP becomes more available. If there are any significant increases in resistance, we will let our community know straight away.”

For more information regarding this case and the effectiveness of PrEP as a means of HIV prevention, please visit www.thebody.com/content/78608/2-people-got-hiv-despite-prep–and-millions-get-hi.html

If you have more questions about PrEP you can contact ACON at prep@acon.org.au, talk directly to your clinician or visit endinghiv.org.au/nsw/stay-safe/prep/

ENDS

For more information please contact:

David Alexander, ACON Media and Communications Officer

E: dalexander@acon.org.au   T: +61 (02) 9206 2044   M: +61 (0)428 477 042