HIV Infection: Drugs

Department of Health and Social Care written question – answered at on 6 September 2019.

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Photo of Andrea Jenkyns Andrea Jenkyns Conservative, Morley and Outwood

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to engage women who are at risk to HIV on accessing the PrEP Impact trial.

Photo of Jo Churchill Jo Churchill The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Health and Social Care

Holding answer received on 05 September 2019

A core function of the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) Impact Trial Community Advisory Board (CAB) is to raise awareness and uptake of PrEP in key populations including women. Further information about PrEP Impact Trial CAB activities and participating community groups can be found at the following links:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/commissioning/spec-services/npc-crg/blood-and-infection-group-f/f03/prep-trial-updates/

https://www.prepimpacttrial.org.uk/faqs

In addition, Public Health England’s Innovation Fund has supported a number of community based projects aimed at increasing PrEP awareness in women, black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and trans communities; information on the projects funded in 2018 can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/innovative-hiv-prevention-projects-reached-170000-people-in-2018

A subgroup within the PrEP Impact Trial Community Advisory Board aims to specifically address PrEP Impact Trial access for women. This subgroup includes membership from a national organisation for sex workers (National Ugly Mugs). The Sophia Forum, who are also members of the subgroup, have recently updated a women and PrEP information leaflet with input from sex workers to ensure the content is acceptable and relevant. The subgroup is also developing a questionnaire to use with women attending sexual health clinics in order to increase knowledge and awareness among women and to aid discussions about PrEP with health workers.

Since the start of the PrEP Impact Trial in October 2017, over half of the available 26,000 trial places have been filled. As of 3 September 2019, all participating Trial clinics were open to recruitment for women, trans men and heterosexual men. Information on the enrolment status of participating clinics is regularly updated on the PrEP Impact Trial website at the following link:

https://www.prepimpacttrial.org.uk/join-the-trial

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