--- title: Experts Recommend PrEP Medications to Prevent HIV description: For the first time, an expert group has recommended PrEP drugs to prevent HIV in healthy people at high risk. canonical: https://time.com/5459291/prep-prevent-hiv/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-11-20T16:00:42.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:05:40.970Z article:section: Health og:title: This Is the Best Way to Prevent HIV, Expert Group Says og:description: PrEP drugs work in healthy, high risk people og:url: https://time.com/5459291/prep-prevent-hiv/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb4f61aaf6a28d91/6988c140cd1bba65de70493e/time-health-stock-single-pill-blue.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5120 og:image:height: 2880 og:image:alt: time-health-stock og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Is the Best Way to Prevent HIV, Expert Group Says twitter:description: PrEP drugs work in healthy, high risk people twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb4f61aaf6a28d91/6988c140cd1bba65de70493e/time-health-stock-single-pill-blue.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is the Best Way to Prevent HIV, Expert Group Says > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement.  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Nov 20, 2018 4:00 PM UTC  Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Nov 20, 2018 4:00 PM UTC While there is no vaccine yet to protect against HIV, doctors have an [effective drug to prevent HIV infection](https://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/PostmarketDrugSafetyInformationforPatientsandProviders/UCM312290.pdf). After impressive studies overseas and in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration approved Truvada, a combination of anti-HIV drugs, in 2012 as the first medication that can prevent healthy people from getting infected with HIV by up to 90%. Now, for the first time, a group of independent experts convened by the government, the [U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)](https://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/), is recommending that people at high risk of acquiring HIV infection be prescribed the drug, also known as [pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)](http://time.com/4114402/aids-hiv-drug-prep/). The group also recommends that all teens and adults ages 15 to 65, as well as pregnant women, be screened for HIV. The recommendation supports current [guidelines](https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pdf/risk/prep/cdc-hiv-prep-guidelines-2017.pdf) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in place [since 2014](https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/2014/prep-guidelines-press-release.html), which advises doctors to prescribe PrEP to people who are not yet infected with HIV but are at high risk of infection. Yet for years after the drug was approved, lack of awareness of its existence, mistrust of its effectiveness and discomfort by doctors in prescribing it initially contributed to slow uptake. That may change with the USPSTF advice, which many professional organizations follow. The task force analyzed all the available evidence on the subject, including several large studies looking at specific groups of people at high risk of infection — gay men, transgender women and heterosexual couples in which one partner is HIV positive — that showed PrEP could [lower the risk](http://time.com/4114402/aids-hiv-drug-prep/) of the healthy partner from becoming infected with HIV by up to 90%. “There is a decent amount of data looking at different populations of people at high risk of acquiring HIV,” says Dr. John Epling, a professor of family and community medicine at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and a member of the USPSTF. “We were able to look at the overall effectiveness of PrEP, which if we pooled all the data showed an average of 73% effectiveness and an up to 90% effectiveness in certain groups. If people took their medicine on a regular basis, they did very well to prevent HIV.” The recommendation for PrEP received the highest grade the task force awards for the quality and strength of the evidence. Truvada is a pill that needs to be taken daily, and compliance is key to its effectiveness. The idea behind PrEP is that people who are not infected with HIV but are at high risk of getting infected start taking the drug so their immune systems are ready to attack the virus if it does appear. Some doctors have not been comfortable prescribing the drug, however, since it requires regular monitoring of their patients for HIV infection and a commitment to remember to take the pill every day. “A lot of the barriers come from the novelty of it,” says Epling, “and with new things folks are uncertain. The purpose of our recommendation is to begin to break down those barriers.” He says that prescribing PrEP requires a strong doctor-patient relationship, since there are no hard and fast rules about who should be prescribed the drug. People at high risk of infection include those who have multiple sex partners, gay men, those who have unprotected sex, IV drug users and people who sell sexual services. Doctors need to ask patients about their sexual and drug use history, and gain enough trust from their patients to be assured they are prescribing the drug for the right group of at-risk people. “It comes down to a discussion,” says Epling, of the advice he would give to primary care physicians who might not be comfortable engaging with their patients about these behaviors. “The more we can get this message out, the more comfortable physicians will be.” Preventing new HIV infections is also a critical part of a comprehensive strategy in controlling the HIV epidemic. If more people are protected from infection, then fewer people can spread the virus to others. The recommendations are now available for public comment until Dec. 26, during which time physicians and the public can comment on ways to improve or change the guidelines before they become final. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5459291/prep-prevent-hiv/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5459291/prep-prevent-hiv/"},"headline":"This Is the Best Way to Prevent HIV, Expert Group Says","datePublished":"2018-11-20T16:00:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:05:40.970Z","description":"PrEP drugs work in healthy, high risk people","url":"https://time.com/5459291/prep-prevent-hiv/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb4f61aaf6a28d91/6988c140cd1bba65de70493e/time-health-stock-single-pill-blue.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alice Park","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/alice-park/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltcb4f61aaf6a28d91/6988c140cd1bba65de70493e/time-health-stock-single-pill-blue.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"time-health-stock","caption":"Prescription pill standing upright on blue counter TIME health","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5459291/prep-prevent-hiv/","name":"This Is the Best Way to Prevent HIV, Expert Group Says"}}]}] ```