The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force issued a recommendation on Tuesday in the pursuit of HIV prevention. Pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP, has been proven effective in preventing people from getting HIV if it's taken regularly, and the task force is now suggesting that people who are at risk of being infected should have access to a daily pill to lower their likelihood of contracting the disease. The recommendation letter was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association alongside an editorial by two physicians involved in HIV research.
While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has long recommended PrEP as "a powerful HIV prevention tool," less than 10 percent of at-risk individuals currently take it, NPR reports. People at high risk include men who have sex with other men, as well as people who inject drugs — and "black and Latino men who have sex with men" are among the people whose rate of getting PrEP is especially low, despite their risk, details the editorial.
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