With the recent advent of new HIV prevention tools, including the star of last month’s International AIDS Conference — a promising injectable that appears to offer six months of protection, providers are moving closer to being able to offer a variety of HIV prevention services.
It is increasingly clear, though, that simply expanding choice will not be enough to hit global targets of having 10 million people on some form of preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, by 2025. An estimated 3.5 million people accessed PrEP in 2023. In addition to widening the selection, experts are calling for lower prices, faster regulatory approval of the tools, and, perhaps most critically, engagement with communities to make sure there will actually be demand for the methods when they become available.
Advocates have long been pressing for this diversity of prevention tools, arguing that choice is critical if the world is to stand any chance of meeting the 2025 target of fewer than 370,000 new HIV infections. Reducing new infections is key to achieving the UNAIDS goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. Globally, 1.3 million people were infected in 2023.
About the author
Andrew Green@_andrew_green
Andrew Green, a 2025 Alicia Patterson Fellow, works as a contributing reporter for Devex from Berlin.
