Britain's NHS is launching a drug that could dramatically reduce the risk of HIV infection in NHS patients. The NHS has previously lost court cases because it was not its responsibility. However, now at least ten thousand people will be given this drug called "Prep" during a three-year clinical experience.
According to NHS England, this will help them determine how to make the drug widely available. Prep inactivates the HIV virus before it causes disease. This perfect patient costs four hundred pounds per month. This per-patient costs £400 per month and preliminary experiments show that it can reduce the chances of infection by 86%.
A trial on 10,000 people will determine how to make it available to the right people, how popular it will prove to be, and how long patients will take it.
Dr. Iain Williams, Chair of NHS England's HIV Group, said: "This announcement shows NHS England's commitment to providing funding for PrEP so that the drug can be introduced more widely in England".
Currently, this experiment is being administered to thousands of people who are at the highest risk of contracting HIV. Gay men are among the groups most at risk of contracting HIV. One in eight gay men in London has HIV and one in 26 in the UK. Harry Todd says that the use of prep has not become socially acceptable. Harry Todd, 25, is among 500 gay men who are experimentally taking the prep.
According to him, “I have seen the confusion on the faces of my colleagues who are waiting for their HIV tests. It is a great fear that affects everything. However, Harry believes that the use of prep has not yet become socially acceptable.
Many people believe that this drug will induce people to be attracted to a life of luxury. An example of this is when contraceptive pills were introduced for women. Dr. Michael Brady says that the results in favor of prep are very clear, but this experiment will show what effects it has in real life.