PrEP in the East

Just after lunch I attended a session chaired by Gus Cairns, an HIV activist from the UK who spoke passionately about the need for PrEP in Eastern Europe earlier in the conference. A few speakers provided their thoughts on what might be holding things up with PrEP:

Justyna Rowalska from Poland presented HIV practitioners perspectives on PrEP in East, Central and South-Eastern Europe, the findings of a survey of many clinicians about PrEP. The findings concluded that the main obstacle to prescribing is not being covered or paid by public health, and that there was no official medical approval for the medication in many countries yet. She stated most said they would prescribe it if it was approved, but that clinicians needed guidelines in their countries, wanted a government strategy that includes PrEP and off label approval.

Gennady Roshchupkin from Georgia then presented Georgia’s PrEP demonstration project that has recently commenced with 100 places in 2017 and a further 100 in 2018, funded by the Global Fund but proposed his concern about what will happen when/if the Global Fund revokes funding. He suggested that the logical solution would be to involve some local NGO’s but that they were used to deal with people in crisis, and PrEP isn’t really a crisis. He thinks co-payment schemes and de-medicalising the delivery of PrEP may also keep costs down.

The panel then commenced discussions. Italy’s comments are of note: Italy has no reimbursement for PrEP and most are sourcing over the internet. The panellist (I have not recorded his name, apologies) stated that the discussion should no longer be medical or scientific, it works, and medical staff need to start advocating for MSM and working with MSM if they are ever going to reach the 90 90 90 targets by 2020.

I saw many other presentations today which will be blogged about by my fellow ASHM scholarship recipients, all of which have been equally as thought provoking and my brain is ticking over with ideas to bring home to Clinic 275. Witnessing the European perspective has been really enlightening.

I’m very grateful to ASHM for the opportunity to attend this wonderful international event and strongly encourage other nurses to apply for scholarships in the future– sure, a bit of the science that was over my head but there was still plenty of research that I could sink my teeth into and learn a lot from. Buona sera from Milan, Emma