preventive medicine

Primary Care Strategies for Preventing HIV

11/17/2022

Improved prevention and treatment options for those with HIV have not only increased the life expectancy of individuals living with the virus but also decreased the number of new infections to approximately 37,000, down from the prior estimate of 60,000 new infections per year.

Jeffrey Kwong, DNP, who is an adult gerontology nurse practitioner and professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, discusses the role of the primary care provider (PCP) in the prevention of HIV during his session at Practical Updates in Primary Care 2022 Virtual Series.

The learning objectives during this session include:

  • The current recommendations for use of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP)
  • PrEP options available
  • The role of PCPs in preventing HIV

“When we look at the currently available options for PrEP, there are now three FDA-approved options and they can be divided up into two categories; oral medications and injectable medications,” says Dr Kwong during the session. Dr Kwong goes in depth about each medication, including approved patient populations, recommended dosage, and adverse effects.

Dr Kwong concludes his session by discussing both patient-level barriers to uptake such as stigma, insurance or cost, and adherence, as well as provider-level barriers, including lack of substance abuse risk assessment and no discussions on sexual health, among others.

“PrEP is a prevention intervention and as primary care providers we do prevention interventions all day, right? We talk about blood pressure, cardiovascular disease prevention, we focus on diet and exercise. Sexual health is just as important and HIV prevention falls under that category,” Dr Kwong concludes.

For more meeting coverage, visit the Practical Updates in Primary Care newsroom.

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Reference:

Kwong J. Preventing HIV: strategies for primary care clinicians. Talk presented at: Practical Updates in Primary Care 2022 Virtual Series; November 16-18, 2022; Virtual. https://www.practicalupdates.consultant360.com/