The largest and longest running national coalition of community-based HIV/AIDS organizations, AIDS United (AU), is calling for the scale-up of pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) is a long-standing member of AU’s Public Policy Committee (PPC) and is a local, national and international leader on new HIV prevention technologies, including PrEP.

PrEP, a breakthrough in biomedical HIV prevention, involves a once-daily medication that reduces the risk of HIV infection by upwards of 90 percent. The PPC and AFC commit to raising awareness of and reducing barriers to a full scale-up of PrEP as a critically important prevention tool for people at increased vulnerability to HIV infection.

November 23rd, 2014, marked the four-year anniversary of the iPrEx study — the first randomized, controlled trial that found PrEP effective in reducing HIV infection risk. In July 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Truvada as PrEP. Earlier this year in May, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released clinical guidelines for PrEP. The PPC invites other AIDS-service organizations and HIV advocates to share their experiences, barriers and perspectives about what will be required to fully scale-up PrEP using the social media hashtag #PrEPWorks.