The fight against the spread of HIV is turning towards the concepts of expanding testing programmes and Treatment as Prevention to combat the chronic illness.
Despite widespread knowledge of how to prevent acquisition of HIV, there were 485 new diagnoses of HIV in Ireland in 2015. This is a 30% increase on 2014 numbers. As was the case in 2014, half of the new diagnoses in 2015 are in the HIV-negative male or transgender woman who has sex with men community.
The use of antiretroviral therapy with at-risk populations, for pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) Is one of the tools that can help to prevent the spread of the virus.
The DISCOVER clinical trial is a randomized, double-blind study comparing the use of two different regimens to prevent sexually acquired HIV infection.
The two regimens are Truvada® (emtricitabine and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate or “F/TDF”), which is approved for use as PrEP in Europe, and emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide (“F/TAF”). F/TAF is approved for use for the treatment of HIV-1 infection but is not approved for use as PrEP.
The aim of the study is to evaluate the safety and efficacy of F/TAF fixed-dose combination once daily for PrEP in HIV-negative men or transgender women who have sex with men.
The DISCOVER trial will be comparing Truvada®(F/TDF) with the F/TAF for use as PrEP for prevention of HIV-1 infection.
To be eligible to participate in the DISCOVER study you must:
- be 18 years of age or older;
- be an HIV-negative man or transgender woman who has sex with men; and
- have had condomless anal sex with two or more male partners in the past 3 months or been diagnosed with syphilis, rectal chlamydia or rectal gonorrhea in the past 6 months.
