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14 Oct 2015

We Need PrEP NOW with Professor Bob Grant

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Way back in 2010, TIME Magazine’s cover story reported ‘PrEP Works’. Study after research study has delivered conclusive results that if taken correctly and as part of a total sexual health and wellbeing regime, HIV negative people who take PrEP can safely protect themselves from becoming HIV positive.

In Australia PrEP is yet to be approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but some gay men here are already importing it from overseas.

Local HIV organisations continue to advocate for PrEP to be made available to gay men in Australia however it’s the Federal Government’s inability to keep in line with international medical and scientific developments that recently resulted in activists erecting posters throughout Melbourne’s CBD aimed at highlighting the Health Minister’s inaction.

World renowned San Francisco based HIV expert Professor Robert Grant recently toured Australia delivering a series of community forums about PrEP. Professor Grant led the largest international study on PrEP involving Gay men and has revolutionised HIV prevention in San Francisco, witnessing new infections fall to the lowest numbers since the start of the epidemic.

In 2012, Professor Bob Grant was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world due to his ground breaking research into PrEP.

Dean Beck was lucky enough to interview Professor Grant and in this special PrEP NOW edition of Word For Word we have included the forum presentation with thanks to The Victorian AIDS Council (VAC) and the Australasian Society of HIV and Viral Hepatitis Medicine (ASHM). You can find out more about PrEP from the VAC.