Is prep only for gay men

It was amid this hopelessness and despair that a drug, Zidovudine, also called AZT, was introduced as the first possible treatment for HIV. This was in About a decade later, scientists came up with the concept of Highly active antiretroviral therapy HAARTwhich would subsequently become the new treatment standard that is used today.

This is for people who are frequently exposed to the virus. InThe Federal Drug Administration in the United States approved a drug for use as PrEP under the brand name Truvada, and two years later, the CDC released guidelines recommending its use among high-risk groups like trans people and men who have sex with men.

Prep For Gay Men

It is a prescription tablet taken daily, and it is usually given to people who are regularly exposed to HIV. Other at-risk individuals outside these groups can also be prescribed PrEP by their doctors, depending on their circumstances.

Truvada is made of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate and emtricitabine, while Descovy is made of tenofovir alafenamide and emtricitabine. This course of drugs has to be started less than 72 hours after exposure for it to work.

They act as catalysts, helping the body to produce antibodies. However, the invention of PrEP, which is medicine taken to reduce the risk of being infected with HIV before exposure to the virus, did not come until over two decades later. Research still goes on, of course, as the goal has always been a cure for the disease.

PrEP can be taken daily, on a regular schedule. Unfortunately, as human beings often do when they are confronted with a situation they cannot overcome, the whole world sought to lay the blame on someone. It is also the only PrEP that has been approved for use by all genders and sexes.

Is it safe for women, transgender people, and other sexual orientations?.

Gay Straight Bisexual Trans

PrEP for HIV prevention is recommended for anyone at risk but it is primarily used by gay males. The gay community, which was already despised and marginalized for the way its members chose to live and love, was an easy victim.

Take a test before you ask your doctor for PrEP. A whole generation of queer elders was lost, and the effects of such a monumental scale of loss are still being felt even today. The drug works by preventing the replication of HIV in the human body.

Even healthcare professionals discriminated against gay men infected with the virus, and only a handful of them took those suffering from it in and sought to, at the very least, make their last days comfortable. It was a dark time that most people would want to fade out of memory because of both the lost people and the mistakes made, but it is important to provide some context in this article.

However, On-demand PrEP should not be taken by cisgender women, transgender men, and anybody with a vagina. Although PrEP is not a hundred percent effective, it has been chosen to prevent HIV infection through sexual intercourse in about ninety-nine percent of cases.

Men that have sex with men have one less thing to worry about. It was a period of uncertainty as healthcare providers struggled to make sense of the disease that was ravaging the gay community. When you take PrEP the right way, it's about 99 percent effective at reducing your risk of HIV.

Even so, only 1 in 4 gay and bisexual men who could benefit from PrEP use it. The disease was at that point called GIRD Gay-Related Immunodeficiency and everyone assumed it was a punishment inflicted upon gay people for living like degenerates.

Truvada is the only drug that has been approved for on-demand use. PEP was first used in the late s by healthcare professionals who had been exposed to HIV in their line of work. In other situations, such as through cuts, injections, etc. After they make contact with the virus, they block the enzyme that it needs to replicate, thus preventing infection.

The world could breathe a sigh of relief.