Antiretroviral prophylaxis for HIV infection in injecting drug users in Bangkok, Thailand

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Antiretroviral prophylaxis for HIV infection in injecting drug users in Bangkok, Thailand

19 June 2013

A daily tablet of tenofovir, a drug otherwise used to treat HIV infection, reduced the risk of HIV acquisition among people who inject drugs by 49% in a clinical trial. Those who took the medication most consistently had higher levels of protection, report scientists from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) in The Lancet today.

These findings from Thailand come from the only pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) trial ever conducted with injecting drug users, and show that PrEP can reduce infections associated with sharing injecting equipment as well as sexual transmission among drug users.

Incidence was 0.35 per 100 person-years in the PrEP group and 0.68 per 100 person-years in the placebo group, representing a 48.9% reduction in infections.

Read the full publication here (restricted access).

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