Fulton County’s Health and Wellness Department this year started prescribing an oval-shaped blue pill aimed at halting the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Studies show the government-approved drug — called Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis or PrEP for short — is extraordinarily effective when taken correctly. So advocates are promoting it as a way to help end the HIV epidemic in the South and across the nation. Meanwhile, critics worry the drug – marketed as Truvada — could encourage promiscuity and unsafe sex and contribute to the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
Using existing funds within their budget and operating out of their clinic across from Grady Memorial Hospital, Fulton health officials started a pilot assistance program in September to make the drug available. As of early November, four people had gotten PrEP prescriptions through the program, which is now rapidly expanding, said Dr. David Holland, the chief clinical officer in the Communicable Disease Prevention Branch of the Fulton Health and Wellness Department.
Holland said PrEP is “very safe and it is extremely, extremely effective.”
“The goal is to make it available to everyone in the county who needs it and wants it,” said Holland, also an assistant professor at Emory University. “The point is that this single message of ‘Just use condoms, just use condoms, just use condoms’ isn’t reaching everybody. So we need something else along with that.”
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