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  5. Preventive Care - HIV (PrEP)

HIV (PrEP)

HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP)

PrEP may provide substantial benefit for decreasing the risk of HIV infection in persons at high risk of HIV infection, either via sexual acquisition or through injection drug use. Adherence to PrEP is highly effective in preventing contracting HIV infection.

Who is at risk

HIV gets passed from person to person in blood, semen, pre-seminal fluid, fluids from the vagina and rectum, and breast milk. People who are:

  • Having unsafe sex.
  • Having sex with someone who has a higher change of getting HIV.
  • Sharing needles.
  • Giving birth or breastfeeding if the mother is infected.

Who is at Risk

Symptoms

The early symptoms of HIV infection may include:

  • fever
  • chills
  • joint pain
  • muscle aches
  • sore throat
  • particularly at night
  • enlarged glands
  • a red rash
  • tiredness
  • weakness
  • unintentional weight loss
  • thrush

Symptoms of late-stage HIV infection may include:

  • blurred vision
  • diarrhea, which is usually persistent or chronic
  • dry cough
  • a fever of over 100 °F (37 °C) lasting for weeks
  • night sweats
  • permanent tiredness
  • shortness of breath, or dyspnea
  • swollen glands lasting for weeks
  • unintentional weight loss
  • white spots on the tongue or mouth

Symptoms of HIV

What you can do

You can use strategies such as abstinence (not having sex), limiting your number of sexual partners, never sharing needles, and using condoms the right way every time you have sex. You may also be able to take advantage of newer HIV prevention medicines such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).

Preventive service at no cost

Persons at high risk of HIV acquisition

The USPSTF recommends that clinicians offer preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) with effective antiretroviral therapy to persons who are at high risk of HIV acquisition.

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Treatment

No cure for HIV infection currently exists. However, treatment can reduce risks for clinical progression, complications or death from the disease, and disease transmission.

If you have HIV, there are many actions you can take to prevent transmitting it to others. The most important is taking HIV medicine (called antiretroviral therapy, or ART) as prescribed. If you take HIV medicine as prescribed and get and keep an undetectable viral load (or stay virally suppressed), you can stay healthy and have effectively no risk of transmitting HIV to an HIV-negative sex partner.