Is Daily Pill Protection From HIV?

Would you want to take HIV drugs every day if you didn’t have an HIV infection?

My guess is that most people would rather not deal with the side-effects and hassle of a daily pill if they did not actually have HIV. But research has shown that people who do this are less likely to become infected.

They used the drug Truvada for the study. This is a pill used to treat people with HIV, as well as used as a post-exposure prophylaxis for people who have had a recent exposure (within 72 hours) such as a broken condom, rape, or bad judgement. But now they are looking at people taking it before exposure to the virus and every day as a preventive medication.

Results found that, when given with condoms and counselling, risk of infection was cut by 44 percent and men “who took their pills most faithfully had even more protection, up to 73 percent.”

“After a median followup of just over a year, there were 64 HIV infections among the 1,248 men on dummy pills, and only 36 among the 1,251 on Truvada.”

They also found that for men in this study risky sex declined, so having the added protection of the pill did not give them a false sense of security. It’s also likely that being in a study like this made them more aware of their risk of infection.

They are still doing more studies, and in addition to medical issues, both the cost of a daily pill and protential legal problems are being investigated.

Thankfully this is only one of many preventative measures being used to fight the HIV epidemic. I say this because I’m not very confident that a lot of people will want to take a pill every day if they are not already infected.

For sex workers or other people who are at risk in some way this could be a great idea and a godsend. But for the average Jane or Joe who likes to hook up with various people on the weekends, I really don’t think they will bother. Fact is, if they can’t bother to use a condom in the first place why would they bother taking a pill every day for the rest of their lives?

This is great news for those at high risk, like I said, but a vaccine and condom education is the best prevention out there hands down.