A Scottish charity has called for a daily pill that effectively prevents new HIV infections to be made available on the NHS.
HIV Scotland has said the drug Truvada should be prescribed as a preventative measure to dramatically reduce the risk of new HIV infections.
Truvada, used as a pre-exposure prophylaxis medication, or PrEP, reduced the risk of new HIV infections by 86 per cent, the UK Medical Research Council’s Proud study found.
The drug was so effective that the men who had not initially received PrEP as part of the study, published in the Lancet, were offered it earlier to reduce their risk of infection.
Truvada was originally developed as a drug to treat patients already infected with HIV and it has not been used as a preventative measure in the UK before.
George Valiotis, HIV Scotland's chief executive, said: “We are calling for action and asking the Scottish Government and the NHS to expedite making PrEp available. Our view is the evidence on PrEP is clear; time after time in global studies it is a highly effective prevention initiative.
“It is important because the number of new infections have not gone down, in fact they look like they are going up so we need something else. We think now is the time to introduce it to Scotland.”
Across Scotland 270 new cases of HIV have been identified this year and it is estimated there are 4,856 individuals living with the virus.
Experts are worried that despite the emphasis on educating people about safe sex and the ‘Rolls-Royce’ drugs and treatment available in the UK HIV is not being contained.
The main routes of transmission are from heterosexual sex, sex between men and injecting drugs.
Sheena McCormack, chief investigator of the Proud study and professor of clinical epidemiology at UCL, said PrEP was “unbelievably effective” at reducing the risk of new HIV infections, especially among high-risk communities.
“It’s about prevention, but it’s profoundly effective. If it was a vaccine we’d be rolling it out across the world and we’d be finding a way to do that,” she said.
“It’s a life changing drug because you can’t underestimate the spectre of HIV that hangs over every gay man. However liberated we are that still hangs around and it really colours the quality of sex for gay men, so I think PrEP is an amazing thing, which I really hope is going to help people make better sexual relationships.”
Concerns men would not be willing to take a daily pill in the real world to lower their risk of HIV infection, were unfounded.
Last week a minister in France announced the country would become the first in Europe to fund the drug publicly to fight HIV.
Truvada is already widely used in the US as a preventative measure after it was authorised in 2012.
Across the UK there are an estimated 107,800 individuals with HIV, whose prognosis is excellent, but they require lifelong treatment at growing expense to the NHS.
The cost of Truvada, made by Gilead, is roughly £360 a month and it is thought there are 10,000 to 15,000 people in the at-risk category who would benefit from the treatment, which has been described by some as a "miracle pill".
While the drug is expensive, it is far cheaper than HIV treatment and can be used at specific periods when an individual is at higher risk of acquiring HIV, lowering the overall cost to the health service.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here