In 2013, not quite a year after the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug Truvada for HIV prevention, a coalition of 50 experts in HIV and women’s health called on U.S. public health agencies to promote the pill and its approach, called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, explicitly to women.
Not much happened.
“No one until recently spent time talking about PrEP for women,” says Dr. Dawn K. Smith, biomedical interventions implementation officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I think we need to have a clearer message: If you’re at risk for HIV, you should consider this. It can work for you.”
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