By the end 2015, more than 25000 people were living with HIV in Australia and nearly 10% of them are unaware of the fact that they have HIV-positive status. Every human being on the face of earth can be affected by the HIV virus but there are certain lifestyle features that make people more vulnerable to HIV.

There is no HIV prevention technique that is foolproof, however, there are some of them that are used by many people because they are providing with better results among the all other techniques and PrEP is one of those HIV prevention technique that has been adopted by many people.

What is PrEP?

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a practice of consuming HIV medicines daily to lower the chances of getting the infection. Even though some researchers are still in doubt about the effectiveness of PrEP but still it can help many people with stopping the HIV to spread throughout the body. Many people get the positive results from PrEP with its consistent use.

Who should take PrEP drugs?

Generally, people who are at high risk of HIV infection should take prescribed PrEP drugs. There are several instances in which an individual becomes more prone to HIV infection.

• People who don’t use make or female condoms
• People who are not aware of the HIV or STD status of their partner
• People who consume drugs through unsafe means
• People who are diagnosed with STDs

Even if you are in doubt that you have recently met with an incident that has made you highly vulnerable to HIV infection then you can start PrEP treatment.

Things to know about PrEP

There are studies which suggest that the consistent use of PrEP drugs can cut the risk of getting HIV up to 90%. People who take drugs intravenously, the risk of getting HIV falls by 70% when they use PrEP regularly. If you want to start course of PrEP then you should know that only a professional healthcare provider can prescribe it to you.

Make sure that before start taking PrEP drugs, you have tested yourself for HIV. Even after starting the consumption of PrEP drugs, go for HIV testing every three month so that you can know whether those drugs are working effectively or not.

Why there is a perception that PrEP is an ineffective HIV Prevention Technique?

There are some recent cases in which people have gone under seroconversion while on PrEP drugs and have gotten the status of HIV positive. It has already been mentioned that no HIV prevention technique gives 100% results but the cases of seroconversion while on PrEP arises due to two important reasons.

• If a person doesn’t take PrEP drugs regularly then this technique becomes less effective
• If a person comes in sexually contact with a person who already has strain of HIV virus that is resistant to the PrEP drugs

Other than that PrEP is found to be very effective and therefore advocates of PrEP drugs are lobbying to make them more accessible and affordable.

One should take all preventive measures to protect himself from HIV virus because as of now, no cure has been found of this disease.